The Apology
by ayellowkid
Summary: All seems well in Arendelle following the Great Thaw, but the events of a fateful festival reveal that the royal sisters' problems cannot simply be melted away. Elsa is forced to deal with the consequences that remain despite the mastery of her powers while Anna tries to understand her sister in a way that has eluded her ever since their childhood separation.
1. Chapter 1

"Elsa!" the princess of Arendelle shouted excitedly. She was only halfway up the wing's main spiral staircase but had already begun to call for her sister and quicken her pace. In her haste, Anna had to remind herself not to get careless and lose her grip on the recently-fitted icy handrails.

Anna loved reminding herself of the many things that had changed around her over the past few weeks. The castle walls which had been the boundaries of the redhead's world for so long were only vaguely recognizable under Elsa's redesigns, yielding many episodes of confusion and then excitement when she momentarily forgot that dinner _was not_ to be eaten alone in her room anymore - instead with guests in the dining hall - or that she _did not_ need to ask for her favorite chocolates to be brought in from the market - she could fetch them herself, now.

And that was not even to mention the truly mysterious lands that had opened up beyond Arendelle proper - places she had only dreamed of before waiting to be discovered and studied by the habitually curious princess.

Anna kept track of the changes and lessons - relished in them, even. There was so much to learn, now, and although the princess had never thought of herself as an intellectual she found herself more studious than ever in the grand class that was open-gated life.

"Elsa!" Anna yelled again once she had reached the staircase's last few steps, confident that her sister would be able to hear her by then.

"Yes?" came a quiet response from Elsa's room.

The barely audible response, to Anna, meant that the queen was sitting at the desk in the back of her quarters again, toiling away on something important. The management of the kingdom was valuable and rewarding work, to be sure, if not a little time-consuming.

Indeed, the queen had dedicated most of her hours under the title to the betterment of Arendelle, signing off on a multitude of official documents and reading reports from the kingdom's many departments and experts each day, often at the expense of free-time. The princess had made no secret of her disapproval of such strict work-ethic, yet her protests seemed to have little to no effect on the resolute leader thus far.

Anna decided against slowing down as she bounced off of the final step, planning to fly through the open doorway into the room and wrestle Elsa from her official duties if she had to.

"I've got a very important idea that absolutely _needs_ your approval, so you'd better put down that treaty and listen-"

Anna made the quick turn from the hallway into Elsa's room only to find her sister already standing at attention, nowhere near her beloved work desk.

The queen's room was easily distinguishable from the rest of the castle. Despite most of the grounds' recent redecoration at Elsa's hands, her own room was set apart by its unique aesthetic. Whereas the queen had taken special care to incorporate her talents into the preexisting foundations of the rest of the royal abode, she had freed herself of such restrictions when reimagining her bedroom. It was the only place in the castle where her powers were allowed to reign fully supreme and unfettered by the restrictions of the non-magical, resulting in a carefully-raised ice floor topped with a collection of translucent, light blue furniture sculpted by her majesty's powers alone, all tied together by winding, subtle designs of ice which danced across the chamber's walls in curved strands that eventually made way for right angles, unifying its design simultaneously under the banners of both delicacy and harshness.

To the left of the doorway was an azure skeleton of a bookcase. Its two shelves were sparse, populated only by the mostly unbound reports that Elsa was working through at the moment, for the queen preferred to do her reading in the library now in one of her own small exercises of newly afforded freedoms.

Next to the bookcase, in the corner, was a workstation, a conjured recreation of her father's old oaken masterpiece which she had inherited years before but recently retired to one of the castle's galleries in its wear and tear. Papers and pens neatly lined the edges of its surface in a peculiar yet orderly pattern, the only truly open space on the desk being the few square inches of exposed coldness directly in front of the sturdy yet comfortable chair that Elsa had designed with her rigorous work schedule in mind.

In the other far corner, a mirror was cradled upon a slightly raised floor, facing the queen's bed and stretching halfway up to the incredibly high ceiling. It had taken Elsa several attempts to get the layered ice to reflect correctly, however what resulted from her hard work was a slightly tilted rounded rectangle that threw back its surroundings with more clarity than any glass in the kingdom.

Elsa often thought to herself proudly that staring into the looking glass was almost like peering through an open door. Many times, she fancied that she could have mistaken the mirror for a portal if it weren't for her own image watching back from within.

Only two aspects remained from the room's previous iteration. The first was the latticed glass window that covered nearly the entirety of the far wall, inviting sunlight to bounce freely off of Elsa's crystalline walls and soak into the deep blue of the floor, making the whole chamber sparkle during the daylight hours. The other was the extravagant bed that the queen had slept in since she was a child, fifteen feet wide and with a mattress and pillows imported from places where birds' feathers were much softer than they tended to be in Arendelle. Anna noticed a small group of wrinkles at the edge of the bed's topmost cover where Elsa looked to have just risen from a still-frosty seat in front of her mirror.

"Oh, good," Anna said, the grin on her face, spring in her step, and her unblinking eyes all serving as worthy ambassadors for her inner excitement. "You're not even busy."

"I..." Elsa began, her voice still quiet and trailing. "No," she coughed softly and to the side, clearing her throat, "no, I was just taking a break."

"You do realize that you can take your breaks _outside_ of your room, right?"

"I was just about to come downstairs," Elsa tried to smile, the mind behind her practiced face quickly compartmentalizing thought after thought - of the kingdom's day-to-day operation, of her continuing studies, and, most of all, of the mirror - to focus on her dear sister.

"Anyways, do you want to hear the idea?" Anna asked. She finished her approach to her sister, pulling Elsa into a casual hug which had become an odd, meaningful sort of normal between them.

"I'd love to," Elsa said, still attempting to focus. She wanted to hear Anna's idea - that much was true - however the queen couldn't help but remain distracted by other matters, even when she allowed herself breaks. She led her sister to the bed and they both sat on the chilled cover where the queen had been resting.

Elsa was unable to keep her eyes from gravitating back towards the mirror, but upon seeing the reflection of Anna displayed she quickly managed to recover, turning her whole body towards her sister but still failing to keep the mirror out of her peripheral vision.

"Let's hear it," she encouraged finally.

"Well, there I was this afternoon, wandering through the marketplace with the royal ice master," Anna started, forcing her lips to turn down for dramatic effect. "We weren't looking for anything in particular - Kristoff calls it 'window-shopping', which is funny, since there are no windows - but, anyways, we were just there _with_ the people of Arendelle. You know, all those people who you've been working so hard to take care of since you came back?"

Elsa once again shot her sister a facade of a smile as her mind dissembled the princess's speech, processing it in a way that had become the norm after years of self-loathing isolation.

When she had been lucky to get a conversation each day it was difficult for the girl to avoid hanging on each word said, studying the way that her tutors had structured the lesson or the nuances of her parents' voices when they told her that they loved her. The analytical habit was one that Elsa was still unable to shake, and, instead of being eliminated with her increased frequency of interaction, her mind now merely had more material to work with. Anna's words swirled around and around through her sister's thoughts, simultaneously retaining their meanings and taking on new, imagined, terrible forms.

_Came back_.

"Yes?" Elsa stammered, hoping that the princess wouldn't leave it at that.

"Well," Anna said carefully, wrinkling her forehead, "They all just struck me as so _happy_, so I was thinking that maybe perhaps possibly it'd be definitely nice for you to see that, too," she finished quickly, her thoughtfulness sticking to composition over delivery.

"See what, again?"

"Arendelle!" Anna practically cheered, excited by the mere fact that her vague idea hadn't been rejected to begin with. "The_ people_ of Arendelle, that is. I mean, you've done so much for all of them, what with all of the new trade agreements and..." Anna paused, only to resume seconds later with a nervous giggle, "you know, that other stuff you do."

"All of that is my duty as queen, Anna," Elsa dismissed the praise.

"Yeah, yeah, I know, that's what you always say," her sister shot back. "But don't you want to go out and see what's come of all of your hard work in here?"

"Not particularly."

"Of course you don't," Anna whined, dropping her shoulders forward in a characteristically exaggerated gesture.

"Anna," Elsa said, her voice measured and confident and royal - not at all an accurate representation of her still recovering mind, "you must understand that I rule Arendelle for our people, not for the _thanks_ of our people. I need no confirmation of success as long as success is being had."

"Yeah, but..."

Anna was once again thinking over how to put her thoughts into words, gazing out the window to her left and envying her sister's ability to speak so effortlessly.

"It's just that I haven't seen you outside since you put the ice-skating rink in the courtyard," the younger sister ventured, turning back to Elsa. "Have you even been out of the castle since then?"

Now it was the queen's turn to look away. Her eyes didn't wander over towards the window but dashed right for the mirror, examining the sisters' images in the ice.

"That was a whole month ago, Elsa."

"I just enjoy my time most when I'm alone or with-"

"Well, we all know that," Anna said.

The princess instantly regretted what she had said, even though Elsa showed no visible reaction apart from a drop in volume when she finished, "you."

The damage was done. Both of them went silent for a while.

"I'm... I'm not going to make you do anything that you don't want to do," Anna finally said, her words weighty. "If you like to stay up here and be alone most of the time that's fine, okay? Really. _I_ would just love if you'd come out every once in a while, too."

"I _do_ come out," Elsa answered, turning back to her sister with a voice not quite as confident as it had been before. "We read together yesterday. And remember when we showed Olaf the furnace room the day before? Not to mention the fact that you and I spend _every_ meal together, now, and-"

"I know, I know, we spend more time together now than we have in forever," Anna clarified quickly. "But your people want to see their queen, too! The trouble's all behind us, now, so we should be making up for lost time, not going back to how things were!"

The princess's voice was not aggressive - actually, it was as hopeful as ever - but her words alone managed to make up for it, providing Elsa's head with a few more devastating things to put on a loop.

_Lost time. How things were._

The queen didn't speak. She had to focus her entire being into keeping her expression neutral.

"And you know what?" Anna continued, mistaking Elsa's pain-induced silence for a concession. "I think that you want to see your people, too. It'll be good for you," Anna was grinning again, sensing that she had won.

And she had, just not in a way that she had intended or even recognized.

"So what do you think? Come on. Give me something."

Elsa sighed, but the chilly release gave her no reprieve from her guilt. "You don't..." the queen started but found herself at an utter loss for words for the first time in the conversation.

Once again she sighed, knowing that she _wouldn't_ be able to finish what she wanted to say - not yet, at least. There were too many thoughts for even her to crystallize into speech without more practice.

She glanced over in the direction of the mirror again.

"Okay."

"You don't sound very into it."

"Are you never satisfied?"

"I'll take it," Anna said hastily, fearing that her sister may change her mind.

"So you would like for me to go shopping?"

"Well, about that..." Anna bit her lip in a way that she knew at least Kristoff could never resist, preparing for what she had guessed would be the hardest part of her proposal to sell to her sister. "That's the second part of my idea, you see."

"Second part?"

"Yeah," Anna continued. "I didn't know if you'd agree to leave the castle, so I figured I'd make sure that's a lock first before I moved to the second part."

Elsa's eyes widened.

"And it _is_ now," Anna nodded, trying to reassure the both of them, "so now we can proceed to the festival."

"The _festival_?" the queen asked, surprised. She didn't like the sound of that.

"Yeah, that's right, the _festival_," Anna crossed her arms. "I thought that we could have some sort of a celebration. That would be the perfect excuse for you to get out, don't you think?"

Elsa considered it. "What would we be celebrating?" she asked cautiously.

"So many things!" Anna knew that she had to tread carefully once again, but hid her care with enthusiasm. "Arendelle is doing better than it's done, like, ever - at least that's what I've _heard_ - and the coronation's festivities were cut a little short, so..."

The queen turned away from Anna's expectant smile and to the mirror again, her gaze unfocused. "I don't think that this is a good idea," she said, the words themselves almost yet another sigh.

"I'm so glad that you're back, Elsa. I'm so glad that everything's so much better now," Anna somehow managed to make things worse, placing her soft fingers on her sister's shoulder and gently turning it back so that they were facing each other again. "Everyone else is, too. _That's_ what we'll be celebrating."

_Better now._

And thus Elsa was once again defeated, helpless in the face of Anna's unintentional summoning of her guilt. She looked for any hint of manipulation in her sister's eyes already knowing that she would find none. Anna's words were innocent, as always, but similarly never failed to take the queen's mind back to the shut doors and the storm.

Elsa _could not_ refuse the princess - not again.

"I understand," she said.

"What? Really?" Anna could scarcely control herself in excitement.

"I place you in charge of the preparations," Elsa said, her face barely moving again, having fully reassumed the graceful form which she had practiced for so very long.

"Elsa!" Anna squealed. She pulled the queen into another firm hug. "I'm so happy!"

Elsa returned the embrace wholeheartedly.

"And that makes _me_ happy."


	2. Chapter 2

The news of the festival spread through Arendelle like wildfire.

The First Annual Royal Festival, Anna had decided, would be a fitting name for the event. It was just exciting enough to satisfy her thirst for the fantastic and just vague enough to keep the humble queen off of her back.

Despite this, Anna made no secret of the festival's true purpose on the posters she had had printed for advertising (which, conveniently, were to be posted around _outside_ of the castle gates where her sister had virtually no chance of seeing them), featuring Elsa's visage front and center. It was clear to the people of Arendelle that the event was a celebration of their returned queen and, Anna hoped, a step forward towards her sister's reintegration into the kingdom.

It was two days before the festival when Kristoff was called upon by the queen to make a peculiar delivery.

"I didn't know that this was part of our job description," Kristoff mused, sitting back stiffly in his seat. He knew that the gently twisting wooded path should have made for a relaxing ride compared to his usual expeditions into Arendelle's colder, more perilous mountainous regions, but he had trouble getting comfortable in the gifted sled. Somewhere deep down he knew that he was just worried about damaging the new vehicle - the trolls had never treated him with many gifts - but he had convinced himself that there was just something about the way it bounced when mounted on wheels that kept the ice master perpetually on his toes.

"_It isn't,_" Kristoff spoke for Sven, who would've been too exhausted to talk even if he were able to, presently struggling to pull the fully-loaded sled down the worn path. "_But this was a request from Queen Elsa._"

"Very true, very true, and I think the castle has enough ice for the time being," Kristoff agreed with himself. He gave up trying to rest and turned to look back over the seat at the sled's cargo. "But what is all of this stuff, anyway? There's some firewood and a bunch of other supplies in the back, but what's up with these big boxes?"

The ice master was unable reach most of the tightly-packed, unmarked wooden boxes in the trunk, but could at least manage to flip open the top the container closest to him stacked at the top of the first row.

"Huh?" Kristoff asked Sven, gazing at the opened box full of several simply-labeled pouches. One tag caught his eye immediately. "Carrots?" he read.

The sled came to a sudden halt, the rider's own momentum nearly throwing him off of his seat. A couple of the topmost bags erupted from the opened box, landing just next to Kristoff at the head of the sled. Sven looked back to his friend expectantly.

"Hey!" Kristoff said, quickly regaining composure and carefully handling the escaped bags. "Carrot _seeds_, Sven," he looked at his partner, who whined at the revelation. "Believe me, I'm just as disappointed as you are."

The reindeer started sullenly down the path again.

Kristoff placed the bags back into the box delicately, examining them as he did. "They've got potatoes, too, and wheat."

"_Aren't we supposed to be going to a farm?_" the ice master gave voice to what he assumed Sven would have asked.

"Yeah, the Daleon Farmstead. You'd think they'd have this kind of stuff covered."

"_Queen Elsa's note said it was an emergency delivery._"

"Queen Elsa..." Kristoff mumbled to himself (not a rare occurrence) and gazed off at the trees and brush lining the trail.

Summer had returned to Arendelle just as quickly as the queen had banished it to begin with, but it was impossible to ignore the damage that the queen's manufactured winter had done to some of the more feeble wildlife.

The strong Arendellien pines handled the rapid transition well enough, but the summer flowers which had just begun to bloom on the eve of the coronation did not, leaving the kingdom's landscapes looking deceptively barren considering the warm weather. Kristoff hadn't given it a whole lot of thought, but it would make sense for the temperature swings to have had an adverse effect on the Daleons' farming operations given the abrupt interruption to the growing season.

"So that's why she sent us out here, Sven," Kristoff declared, proud of having solved the mystery. "Queen Elsa must be distributing seeds to so many farms that she's run out of people to haul them!"

The ice master, satisfied, turned back around in his seat and was momentarily confused by the light sound that he heard as he did so.

_Crinkle._

"The poster!" he realized, shoving a hand into one of his deep pockets to retrieve the thick, rolled-up sheet of paper.

It was one of the advertisements for the festival. Anna had all but decreed that the ice master make it a part of his delivery to the farmstead, worried that the Daleons would be oblivious to the rapidly approaching celebration on account of their infrequent trips into Arendelle proper.

Kristoff slipped the mildly creased poster back into his pocket and made a mental note to remember to give it to the farmers upon his arrival.

It wasn't much longer to the Daleon Farmstead by then. Instead of chatting the rest of the way, both Kristoff and Sven began to hum nothing in particular, the former resigned to the fact that he'd find no relaxation in the gift sled.

The ice master rose to full attention as soon as he saw a fence on the horizon. The tall line of lazily-cut posts stretched far in both directions, disappearing behind the surrounding forest's many trees. A few hundred feet ahead on the path was a gap in the wall: a wiry, rusted metal gate with a single word etched into its face in fanciful script.

"Daleon," Kristoff squinted and read aloud. "So this is the place."

"_I don't see anyone._"

As the ice master neared the entrance to the farmstead, he could begin to see its fields beyond the fence, split apart only by the continuing path which itself twisted in two directions, leading to both a stable in the back of the property and a simple-looking, single-level house in the center of the plots.

"Hello?" he asked the air.

Reaching the gate and surveying the premises, Kristoff neither saw nor heard anyone who would answer his call.

"Hang on, Sven," the ice master said quietly, dismounting the sled and walking up to open the gate himself. The rusty latch raised with significant effort and an equally significant screech.

"_No one's visited here in a while, either,_" Kristoff thought Sven might have said as he pushed the iron barrier with his shoulder. It put up a good fight, dragging along the dirt below, but eventually pivoted off of the path completely.

"Sure seems that way."

"_Maybe they're inside._"

With his friend back on the sled, Sven proceeded cautiously through the gate.

Much as Kristoff had hypothesized, the crops of the farmstead looked all but ruined. He didn't see a single living plant as the duo made its approach to the farmhouse. That wasn't to say that he didn't see some dead ones, however. The squared-off plots surrounding the Daleons' home looked just as untended as the gate had. The yield was undoubtedly damaged by Elsa's winter, though it didn't seem as if the Daleons cared enough to clean up the ruin left behind.

"Hello?" Kristoff called again nervously, hoping that his voice would carry into the house now that he was halfway across the property. There was still no response. "Maybe no one's home?"

"_Emergency delivery._"

"Really?"

Sven pulled the wheeled sled forward until he was almost stepping up onto the house's unstable porch and then looked back at Kristoff with a familiar gaze of expectance.

"Fine," the ice master groaned and hopped down from his seat, walking around the reindeer, up two short, old steps, and to the house's front door.

He hesitated for a short moment and then, prompted by a whine from Sven, knocked.

"Delivery... Delivery from Queen Elsa," he said. "Is anyone home?"

Kristoff heard a mix of quiet groans, murmuring, and footsteps from inside of the house. He was torn over whether he thought any of that was a good thing or not. In a few moments the door before him swung open.

"Hello there."

The woman who greeted him was older - Kristoff guessed that she may have been in her forties, though he didn't have much of a baseline - with a face and body tempered by long days of work in the outdoors and pony-tailed blond hair that had been given bleached highlights by the same token.

The ice master would have liked to say that the woman had a certain air of sophistication about her if such a trait weren't so diametrically opposed to her more obvious raggedy dress and permanent, goofy smile.

"A delivery from the queen, you said?"

"Uh, yeah. Are you Mrs. Daleon?"

"Please, call me Dee," Dee waved her hands and chuckled a bit, deep and rough and roaring.

"Oh, okay," Kristoff blushed instead of joining the woman in laughter. Before long, Dee was watching her guest, seeming to be waiting for something. "I've got your seeds," he said, but it failed to change her expression. "A bunch of other supplies, too."

Dee still waited.

"My name's Kristoff," the ice master offered shakily. He gave the back of his head a nervous scratch.

"Nice to meet you, Kristoff," Dee said, grinning once more. "Seeds, you said? And supplies? That's just what I wanted to hear, let me tell you. Not all has been well on the Daleon front - not since that trick the queen pulled last month."

"I, uh, noticed," Kristoff murmured.

"I scarcely knew how we were going to keep going, considering Ron's illness and my husband's disappearance..." the woman trailed off, but she quickly refocused herself on the guest, not wanting to appear rude. "Some aid will be nice during these tough times."

"Um, right," Kristoff replied. He scarcely knew how _he _was going to keep going, considering the woman's overt friendliness. The ice master opted to beg for some manual labor to release him from the bonds of conversation. "Where should we unload?"

Dee seemed to think it over for a second, poking her tongue ever-so-slightly out through her lips thoughtfully. "Just bring it all inside and set it right in here. I'll help you."

"Oh, that's not necessary."

"I insist."

"No, please, I-"

"Don't worry, I'm not quite the heavy-lifter I used to be," Dee assured the ice master. She took the initiative to skip out onto the porch and lead the way down the steps and to the backside of the sled. "I'll be leaving the big boxes to you, anyway."

"Right," Kristoff pouted, shooting Sven a dejected glance in passing. He had hoped that the cordial woman would leave him to his work.

Fortunately for him, the unloading process was for the most part devoid of chatter.

Together, the virtual strangers carried box after box into the farmhouse. Despite her previous statement, Kristoff quickly noticed that Dee was incredibly strong for a woman of her size and age, keeping a brisk rhythm as she transported the whole haul of firewood (close to twenty logs) in only two trips before moving on to the boxes of seed.

By the end of the endeavor, the ice master began to worry that she may even begin to outpace him. He had been running on fumes since somewhere around the third box. Dee did not even look to have broken a sweat.

"Fantastic," Dee said once she had gracefully stacked one of the last - and heaviest - boxes on top of the others.

Kristoff struggled into the front room of the farmhouse through the door behind her, grunting as he dropped his own final load to the ground beside the wooden tower. He wiped some sweat from his forehead and sighed in relief, leaning back against the closest wall and taking in his surroundings as he cooled off.

The front room took up roughly two-thirds of the house's floor space and had all of the aspects of a kitchen, lounge, and guest bedroom cobbled together in a confused-looking swirl.

There was an old stove off to the right with accompanying cooking utensils, two buckets, an upside-down open book, and a half-eaten loaf of bread stacked on a short table beside it. A sofa was in the center of the room, its cushions caked with dirt in some places and merely dusted in others. A rag of a rug sat at its feet, and the three handmade, splintered wooden chairs atop it were all similarly dirtied.

The left wall of the room was completely occupied by a makeshift bookshelf that looked like it could fall at any minute, its thrown together foundations bent under the weight of the multitude of volumes that the Daleons seemed to own. There were so many books, in fact, that the bookshelf was unable to hold them all even at its maximum capacity, resulting in a few cluttered piles set up against the wall nearby.

On the far side of the space were little more than two doors, both closed, presumably leading to the Daleons' bedroom and bathroom.

The air in the farmhouse was thick with dust, Kristoff quickly noticed, and the ice master couldn't help but cough a few times when the tiny, dry particles got stuck in his throat as he caught his breath.

"Let me get you some water," Dee said, already over at the small table next to the stove. She opened its sole drawer to pull out a mug. The woman dunked it in one of the buckets and scurried back over to Kristoff, almost thrusting the cup - now full of room-temperature water - into his hands.

"Thanks," he rasped before gratefully gulping down the warm water.

Suffice to say that it didn't help much. Kristoff lost control, his entire tickled chest tightening in a buildup to his loudest cough yet.

"Who's that, Mama?" a gruff, damaged voice called from the back of the house.

The left door on the far wall opened, revealing a tall, unkempt man as the speaker. His hair was long, dark, and greasy, hanging down past his forehead like an shade, obstructing all but a sliver of his eyes and his mouth of split lips. Broad shoulders hung over the rest of his body in a hunched, aggressive posture.

Despite the man's intimidating muscular physique, hidden little by his gossamer stained shirt and long broken-in pants, Kristoff could tell immediately that the animal of a man was ill. His voice was deeper than even his mother's and, more notably, scratchier than any healthy man's. The little that the ice master could see of the beast's face was emaciated and flushed with fever.

"You're awake," Dee said flatly, glancing over to the man for a moment and then quickly back to the guest. "Kristoff, this is my son Ron," she gestured, her voice back to its peppy self. "Ron, this is Kristoff. He's brought us some supplies from the castle."

"From the castle?" Ron asked suspiciously.

"A delivery from the queen," Dee nodded.

Ron closed the door to the bedroom behind him, not so much as making eye contact with Kristoff as he lumbered over to the stacked boxes. He opened one of them, bending over ever so slightly more to look at the pouches within.

"Seeds," he spat, looking sideways to Kristoff. "Seeds from Queen Elsa?"

"Uh, yeah."

"And firewood," the man looked over at the pile of logs that Dee had placed with the Daleons' preexisting stock beside the stove.

Kristoff barely nodded.

"We've got firewood now," Ron said bluntly. "The queen didn't kill _most_ of the trees."

Kristoff gulped. The farmer sounded slightly angry, but what was truly worrying was his rapidly transforming demeanor. The huge man's back had begun to straighten (or at least get as close as it could) and his chest was now puffed out at an odd angle in Kristoff's direction. Ron's eyes locked onto the ice master from underneath their cover of hair.

"Do need seeds," he continued. "She did manage to kill every damn plant we had in the ground. I figure this is her idea of an apology, huh? Well I'd like to-"

"That's enough, Ronald," Dee was suddenly beside her son, a hand placed to his shoulder and squeezing it tight. "Now is not the time nor place," she hissed, "nor company."

They exchanged a look through his vine-like hair and the younger man sighed, dropping back down into his normal, much worse posture. He coughed, but it wasn't a dusty one.

"You understand that Queen Elsa's winter was devastating for our crops," Dee looked to Kristoff now, her hand still perched on Ron's shoulder. "Not to mention my son's health."

"Of course," Kristoff nodded with uncomfortable solemnity.

"My husband William has yet to return, as well," the woman continued, voice wavering. "He left for the castle in the storm one month ago seeking supplies."

"Oh," Kristoff said, his mouth hanging open. He had just made the trip from the castle to the farmstead in a couple of hours. "I'm... I'm so sorry. Is there anything I can do?"

Dee shook her head. "He will be back soon."

The three of them stood in silence for an interval. Kristoff tried desperately not to look at Ron, who continued to watch him, unmoving.

"I should probably go," the ice master told Dee.

The woman stared at him, too, although her gaze was not nearly as hostile as her son's. Once again, she was waiting for something.

"I've got to get back to the castle."

Nothing.

"Thanks for, uh, helping me unload?"

"Don't mention it," Dee finally smiled. Her grin was weaker now, though, and the wrinkles around her mouth less pronounced. She was distracted.

Kristoff had just whirled around and started for the door in a hurry to leave when his hand absentmindedly brushed across a pant leg.

_Crinkle_.

The ice master stopped in his tracks with a silent curse. The nightmare wasn't over just yet.

"Oh, right," Kristoff said awkwardly, turning back to the mother and son. With one hand he produced the written advertisement for the festival from his pocket. With the other, he scratched the side of his head. "Anna, uh, Princess Anna asked me to give this to you when I stopped by. She said that she would love to see you there."

Kristoff held the poster out to Dee, who reached out and took it. She unrolled the sheet and both of the Daleons inspected it with little enthusiasm. It didn't take Ron long to become completely disinterested in the image of Queen Elsa, scoff lightly, and then return his seething eyes to the ice master.

"It's the day after tomorrow," Kristoff said. He knew that Anna would want them to come.

Well, he knew that Anna wanted everyone in the kingdom to come, really.

"Thank you," Dee said, her forehead still scrunched up in worry and her gaze passing right through the ice master when she looked up. "Perhaps we will see you there."

And so the ice master left the farmhouse with the friendliest nod he could manage.

He bounded down the porch's two steps and hopped back into his sled as fast as possible.

"Let's go, Sven," Kristoff commanded, and the reindeer was happy to oblige, having seen most of the events unfold through the open front door.

As they pulled away, Kristoff could swear that he felt Ron's hateful glare beating into his back, but was far too afraid to look back and check if his hunch was correct. He hadn't heard the door to the farmhouse close behind him.

The ice master didn't feel comfortable talking until the now-empty sled had completely left the farmstead's grounds and he had personally shut the rickety gate behind them.

"That was so weird."

"_Yup_."


	3. Chapter 3

A few miles away from each other, two women opened books in the same instant.

They had scoured page after page and adopted idea after idea to lead them to this point. They had been searching for so long, it felt, and each of them hoped that this book could be the answer to the questions they asked themselves - that_ this_ combination of_ these_ words put to text by someone else years and worlds away could somehow be applied to their own lives in a manner that could give them redemption or solace.

Both of them were seeking help in their books.

One of the readers was a queen, and she read in her castle's library. Books with frosty pages lay scattered about the floor below her like cast aside bodies.

She had cleared an entire shelf of books large and small that evening before coming to her current reading material, ripping through each one rapidly, desperately and throwing them to the ground just as quickly when she deemed they were of no use. She scanned the first page and then she flipped it back. Again. Scan, flip. Scan, flip.

The queen knew what she was looking for.

That distinguished her from her fellow reader, an older woman sitting sorrowfully at a chair that she had made for herself when she was far younger. It was too small for her now, but she always sat there anyway. She was only on her first book of the night - really, she had started it the day before and was just continuing - and her eyes scrolled through each page slowly, still hoping that the questions that she was searching for would reveal themselves so that she could then begin work on the answers.

The woman didn't have as many books as the queen in her library, and the ones she did have she had already loved and learned from two or three times over. With each page turn, she sighed, knowing that with it her ideal became less likely.

She knew all of her books and suspected that none of them could help her out of the despair that she had fallen into, but she kept rereading them anyway, hoping that something new would jump out at her, something she had missed before.

The woman had done little but read and hope for almost a month, now.

Where the queen feasted on the captive words of the last few pages, the old woman absorbed. Where the queen's eyes raked through the page, the old woman's paced themselves.

For both of them were seeking help with their books, but they were seeking different kinds of help with different kinds of problems.

Both of the women finished their books just as they were interrupted by knocks.

In the castle, the queen's sister had rapped the wall outside of the library's open door.

"Tonight's not a good night to be staying up late, you know," Anna said playfully. "I never thought that _I_ wouldbe the one saying this, but shouldn't you be in bed?"

"Soon," Elsa said, hurriedly getting up from her seat near the front of the library at the lounge chair that had been her father's. She hurriedly went to work organizing some of the books on the ground, embarrassed by her messiness now that she was in the presence of her sister. "I'll sleep soon," she placed the smaller journal that she had just finished on top of a few others, picked them all up at once, and started towards one of the many towering bookcases lining the walls of the high-ceilinged room.

"Have you read all of these today?"

"I skimmed them all today," Elsa made another trip from the floor to the shelf.

"Quick reader," Anna stepped into the library, bending down to pick up a book which Elsa had thrown down near the door a few hours before. "What do we got here?" she rolled the thing in her hand until she found the title in small letters on the narrow storybook's cover. She giggled when she read it. "_The Troll Prince_? I remember when Papa read this to me when I was just a kid."

"Me too."

Anna looked up at her sister, who was carrying the last of the books over to their place on the shelf.

"And what's that one you're holding on top there? Is that one of my romance novels?"

Elsa blushed as much as her naturally cool skin would let her. She had finished cleaning up the rest of the books and now appeared beside her sister, snatching the final volume from her and then recompleting the stuffed shelf's contents and thus the library's walls of uninterrupted spines.

"I didn't know you were such a sucker for fairytales and books about love!" Anna teased.

"They're _all_ about love," Elsa brushed off the comment simply. She hooked a freezing arm around her sister's own, gently pulling her along through the door and into the hall. "Come on, you were right, it's late. We should both get some rest for the festival tomorrow."

Not so far away, the other reader had been interrupted by two reluctant, slow fists on the farmhouse's front door.

"I'll get it," Dee said quietly, unsure of whether her son was awake or already pulled into one of the long, fitful sleeps that had started with his illness. The woman put her book down and walked to the door, wondering who it could be. The man from the castle had been the Daleons' only guests in months, and even before then no visitor had ever come to the farmstead at an hour as late as the present.

Hope swelled within the lonely woman. Perhaps it wasn't a guest.

But disappointment was quick to set in once she had opened the door. It was a another guest. Someone else from the castle, she determined, glancing from the man's dark olive suit with the familiar insignia on his chest to the decorated horse that he had hitched to the porch behind him. Dee didn't recognize the plump man.

"Evening, ma'am," he said, looking everywhere but at the woman. His jaw was shaking, but it wasn't cold out. "I'm Isaac, of the Arendelle Royal Guard. Do you mind if I come in?"

"Of course not," Dee said, but she was unable to mask the sadness in her voice. She had thought that just maybe it could have been _him_. "Are you thirsty? Hungry?"

"I'm fine, ma'am."

"Well, come sit down," the woman invited the guest in, showing him to the most comfortable seat in the house - the couch - and within seconds she was back in her ancient chair. She glanced at the book that she had placed to the ground for a moment, examining the folded poster advertising the Royal Festival that she had put between its pages as a bookmark. "What brings you here tonight?"

Isaac fidgeted ever so slightly, one finger picking at another as his own eyes followed the woman's to the bookmark, delaying the inevitable. He didn't want to say anything, though. He didn't want to come out with it - there was a selfish part of him that wanted her to _know _before he would have to tell her. He recognized it as selfish and hated it but he couldn't break free of its influence.

"Hm?" Dee mumbled, looking back up at the guardsman.

Isaac still looked at the bookmark, silently praying that she would realize the message that he had been tasked with delivering just by his presence. He didn't want to have to be the one to tell her. He didn't think that he could tell her.

He had just been a part of the search committee that Princess Anna had assigned after the ice master had brought news of the missing farmer the night before.

He had simply gotten the shortest stick after they found the guy.

He wasn't supposed to be there. He didn't _want _to be there. He couldn't bring himself to speak.

"Isaac, you said?"

Isaac's head flicked up to the call and the two of them finally made eye contact.

Dee understood when she saw the eyes. They were apologetic and sad and angry and embarrassed and so many other things.

He had been hiding them from her.

"No!" her voice was unfamiliar even to herself.

A grunt from the bedroom. "Mama?"

"No, no! Please! No!"


	4. Chapter 4

On the afternoon of the festival, Elsa completed her duties abnormally early, finding that there was rather little business to attend to as the entire kingdom prepared for a night of celebration. The queen had had a busy week, but on that day most of the responsibilities had actually fallen to Anna for a change as she put the finishing touches on the evening's plans.

Elsa finished reading the last of her allotted paperwork just after lunch, however, instead of leaving to check on how things were going with the princess, she stayed to her room, even closing her door for privacy - an uncommon occurrence since her return - before planting herself firmly in front of the mirror.

"I've got some time now," Elsa whispered to herself, but even she could tell that she sounded unsure.

She knew that she would have hours before Anna came to bother her about getting ready. Unfortunately, she still feared that it wouldn't be enough.

After all, Elsa had been struggling in the mirror ever since the coronation fiasco. Admittedly, between running the kingdom and spending time with Anna, the queen didn't find herself with much free time. The little time that she did have to dedicate to practicing in the mirror had turned out minimal results and there seemed to be no end in sight. A month after she had reassumed the throne, Elsa was still unable to find the words that she needed to say to herself.

Much less the ones that she needed to say to Anna.

"This is important," she reminded her reflected self and began.

She had settled on the first part of her apology just a few days before, directly following her conversation with Anna regarding the festival:

"I used to think that if I was able to control my powers then all of my problems would go away," she recited. "I thought that if I could just reach that certain point of control I would be healed - we would be healed. But I... I've reached that point now, and I realize that I was wrong."

Elsa inched closer to the mirror, her nose almost touching the surface. Her eyes were locked on themselves. They searched meticulously for any sign of weakness so that it could be eliminated.

"No matter how much I'm able to control myself in the present, I can't change the past," the queen continued, her frequency of blinking now trivializing her eyes' task. "I've done horrible things. I've hurt you and Arendelle in more ways than I can imagine. I've earned myself a guilt that follows me everywhere."

Elsa tried to allow the words to continue releasing from her plagued mind. This was the furthest that she had ever gotten. She was on the edge of something big, she felt. If she could just get the next few words out, then it would be easy from there..

"And I..."

It was no use. The queen choked, unable to keep going. She stumbled backwards.

"And I don't know how to get rid of it!" she shouted, turning her face up away from the mirror and only hoping afterward that the closed door would suffice to keep the noise from escaping her room. Elsa threw out an open hand, willing a chunk of weak, darkened ice towards the mirror. It stuck to the surface over her duplicated face, obscuring it beyond recognition just as she had intended.

Elsa took a few steps over and sat down on the edge of her bed, glaring at her warped reflection. "Why is this so hard?" she asked it. Even without much practice, her tutors had often praised her skills in composition, and the queen would be hard pressed to name instances where her mind had failed her before in translating its thoughts into words. Then again, it would be similarly difficult for her to name an essay or even declaration that she had written that held anywhere near the same importance as her current task.

After half a minute of contemplation, the queen waved her hand in the vague direction of the mirror and the out of place ice melted away. Her reflection returned, glimmering like the rest of the room in the midday sun that shone through the window.

Elsa rose from the bed and took the familiar five steps forward.

She tried to focus.

"I used to think that if I was able to control my powers then everything would go away," the queen started once more, her eyes studying themselves.

* * *

Anna arrived to the ice room shortly before the start of the festival, having only barely completed the preparations just as Elsa had expected. She found her sister again sitting on the bed across from the mirror but thought nothing of it, distracted instead by the reality of the Royal Festival's planning. The work had been quite a bit harder than she had expected, and the princess hated to admit it that she was tired before the party had even begun.

"Are you ready?" Anna asked as she entered the queen's quarters, her nevertheless upbeat voice catching Elsa off guard.

"I think so," Elsa sighed, standing up and moving to join her sister by the door. She was tired, too. It was early evening now and she had done nothing but work on formulating her apology for the entirety of the afternoon. Not that she had anything to show for it.

"You look gorgeous," Anna grinned, looking the queen up and down as she made her way over from the bed. Elsa had made a few alterations to her normal icy attire for the occasion, opting to remove the sleeves from the dress altogether and add a few new uneven, fringed layers of ice just above her hips, wrapping her waist in a mind-bendingly beautiful pattern. Her cape followed faithfully behind her, now thinner, darker, and decorated with so many intricate tracings that it almost looked like woven cloth.

"You're not so bad yourself," the queen commented. The princess was dressed in a lavish golden ball gown and it was plain to see that plenty of work had gone into making the outfit fit Anna perfectly in both size and feeling. In Anna's uncovered arms her sister could see her free spirit, in the dress's many yellows her capacity for love, and in the shoes' flat bottoms her clumsiness.

"Well, I didn't make _my_ dress," Anna blushed.

"Believe me, you're making it now," Elsa laughed out. The sisters exchanged a warm smile that went right to work melting away their respective troubles, at least for the moment. Elsa couldn't bring herself to interrupt it.

"We've got about ten minutes before the celebration begins," Anna finally said.

"Then I guess we'll be ten minutes early-"

"It's not like there's a rush," the princess interrupted her sister on the way out the door, her voice high and nervous. She took each of the queen's hands in her own and half-spun her so that they were facing each other. "Look, I just wanted to say really quick that I'm really, really happy that you let me put on the festival," she said, blushing a little bit. "It, uh, it means a lot to me that we get to do this kind of stuff now."

Elsa smiled a graceful, measured smile. "Of course," she said.

"Thanks, Elsa," Anna pulled her sister into a firm hug that was reciprocated instantly.

The queen was well aware that the festival would make her uncomfortable. In fact, there was little she disliked more than unnecessary interaction with anyone that wasn't Anna or Olaf. In Elsa's eyes, the sacrifice was more than worth it. She would do anything to see her sister this happy.

"Let's go."

* * *

In addition to making sure that the entirety of the festival was properly functioning, Anna had taken it upon herself to plot out a detailed itinerary for the queen's night, covering everything from what she would be doing to who she would be talking to and even what she would be eating during the whole celebration. She had delegated the first significant chunk of time to socializing with the more respectable guests - upper-class Arendelliens, members of the Royal Guard, foreign dignitaries, and the like - in the ballroom of the castle, where Anna had arranged for Arendelle's very best musical talent to provide dancing music. The princess hoped to ease her sister into the celebration with such a start, if such a feat were possible.

The sisters entered the ballroom through a large interior door just a few minutes before the festival was formally set to begin. Remodeling the room was one of Elsa's first priorities as queen (considering the damage that she'd done to it during the coronation) and the reception to her design choices was universally positive among the guests that had already arrived. Only a few of them had even begun to dance while the vast majority busied themselves marveling at the elegantly sculpted ice columns lining the room or discussing amongst themselves how marvelous the chandelier's impossibly frozen skeleton looked against its candles.

But even the most enthusiastic of conversations ceased when the guests recognized the royal family's entrance.

Elsa's eyes flicked from face to face, trying to figure out why only the faint notes of a piano player's practice were left in the hall. Fear boiled up inside of her. She wondered if they were remembering. Remembering, perhaps, what had happened the last time that there had been guests in that very room.

Anna waved.

Suddenly, the whole crowd erupted in applause.

"Queen Elsa and Princess Anna are here! The festival has begun!" someone shouted, echoed by a few others as the message moved out of the ballroom and filtered into the courtyard.

"Look at their dresses!"

"The queen looks so grown up!"

"Wow, so that's _her_, huh?"

Elsa gulped and straightened her gaze, following Anna in curtseying to another most enthusiastic cheer.

"They all look so happy," the queen commented subtly to her sister.

"They are! Of course they are, why wouldn't they be?" Anna looked over, her honest confusion barely noticeable over sheer joy. "Oh, come on, come on, I want to show you something."

The princess took the lead in making their way to the back of the ballroom. The guests split apart before them, making sure that their path clear but invariably greeting the sisters as they passed.

"So nice to see you again, Queen Elsa. And, of course, Princess Anna," a woman who Elsa recognized vaguely from the coronation as a queen from a neighboring kingdom nodded in their direction.

"You too!" Anna said energetically, but didn't slow her pace.

Elsa, trailing just behind, returned the fellow queen's nod and smiled.

"Queen Elsa!" a large man that neither of the sisters recognized bellowed, stepping aside. "The Kingdom of Geralde is so very sorry to have missed your coronation. Prince Russ has sent you five of the finest horses in our land in the hope that you would forgive him!"

"Cool, thanks!" Anna kept moving.

"A gift really wasn't necessary. Our kingdom is grateful for your prince's generosity," Elsa told the man diplomatically just before her sister's pull on her arm dragged her forward.

After a few more similar less-than-formalities, the sisters finally broke free from the crowd near the back of the ballroom. They each stepped up onto the raised platform customarily reserved for the royal family to oversee proceedings. It, too, had been redone with Elsa switching out half of its traditional decorative drapes for nearly transparent, magical ones and flecking the red carpet with dots of un-melting snow.

But the queen started to become confused as she looked on at the platform from the perimeter. Something was different from how she remembered designing it.

"The throne," she said breathlessly. She remembered having revamped the royal throne - her father's originally - when she had done the rest of the ballroom. The queen recalled dumping enough magic on it for it to look at home even in her own room, but now she stared at an even larger, delicately carved, sturdy, comfortable-looking, and distinctly ice-free chair.

"What do you think?" Anna asked, sounding quite pleased with herself. "I had it put in this morning so you'd be surprised. I got Papa's moved up to the west gallery, right next to his old desk."

"I love it, Anna," Elsa turned to her sister, squeezing her hand. "Thank you."

"Eh, I dunno," the princess shrugged, the right half of her face still turned up into a wry smile, unable to hide the truth. "I just feel like it's missing something."

"No, it's perfect."

"No, I _really_ think it's missing something," Anna winked. "Maybe something you could help me with?"

Elsa looked around. The ballroom was chock-full of people by then, most of them having started to dance now that the queen had arrived. She caught a few of the closer guests eyeing her, but they looked away before she could determine whether it was in suspicion or admiration or a mix of the two.

"There are all these people around," Elsa scolded her sister under her breath, hoping that no one was close enough to hear the suggestion. "Maybe later."

"Elsa, come on!"

"It wouldn't be proper."

"Who cares? It's not like it's going to hurt anybody."

The queen sighed, again stealing a glance over her shoulder at the distracted crowd.

"No one will even notice," Anna bit her lip, her eyes pleading. "Just do it real quick."

Soon enough, the princess was squealing with delight as her sister put her hands out in front of her. Elsa twirled her fingers in the air, oblivious to the quieting celebration behind her as she went to work on the new throne. An unexplainable energy left her body, manifesting itself in swirling masses of whiteness that dropped sideways onto the grand chair, spreading first along its deeply polished armrests, which somehow became smoother with their magical coating.

More of the crowd was watching now, and quite attentively. Next came the throne's cushion. Elsa gave it the same treatment as the carpet that she was standing on, gingerly snapping snowflakes and adding noise to the fluffy blue seat.

Finally, the queen arrived to the chair's back. It was narrow and stood perfectly perpendicular to its base, managing to look rather uncomfortable for such an extravagant work of art. Elsa effortlessly corrected the mistake, tossing ice with enough force to bend the backrest into a slightly more comfortable angle. The ice stuck to it, first moving restlessly in the center of the wood but splitting apart into two separate clumps when the queen threw her own hands apart. The clumps took shape on the top of the wooden frame, becoming two frozen, sleek branches around where Elsa's shoulders would be if she were to sit down. The throne was finished.

The cheers from the crowd were even louder than before.

"Amazing!"

"It's gorgeous! Do you think she'd do my throne?"

"I didn't really believe the stories, but this queen is the real deal!"

Elsa turned slowly, embarrassed by the fuss. "No one will notice, huh?" she said discreetly to her sister.

But Anna didn't answer. Glancing over at the princess, Elsa quickly realized that her sister wasn't paying attention to her or the crowd's exclamations. Instead, Anna was on her tiptoes, peering over the guests.

"Who are you looking for?" Elsa asked her.

"Um, no one," her sister said, trying unsuccessfully to sound innocent. "I was just, uh..." suddenly, Anna spied a familiar blond head among the others. "Kristoff! I'll be right back, okay? Stay here."

Before Elsa could protest, the princess had darted off of the raised platform and into the mass of people.

"This wasn't our agreement," the queen, now alone, muttered to herself. The crowd had already closed in around the platform, still watching her with mouths agape in wonderment. There were so many and they were wrapped around the slightly elevated platform so closely that Elsa could see no end to their numbers. She determined that it would be far too difficult and disruptive to chase Anna, but that wasn't to say that she didn't want to.

"A magnificent trick, Queen Elsa," one of the guests in the closest band around the platform shouted. "Maybe you could teach me how to do that one sometime!"

"I... I don't think it works like that," Elsa replied, quivering. The crowd laughed, but even that failed to soothe the queen. She looked around at each of the jubilant faces in turn.

She hoped that Anna would return soon.

* * *

Whereas the ballroom had been reserved for only the most prestigious guests, the princess had ordered for the Arendelle Castle courtyard to be open for everyone and, indeed, it seemed that no one in the kingdom wished to miss out on the mass invitation. Just outside of the ballroom doors, the terrace was nearly bursting at its seams with people packed tightly between its arches, its two frozen fountains, and the front gates.

In the center of the sea of heads, encircled by the few commoners not preoccupied by their tight interaction with each other, stood a cylindrical, wooden tower roughly six feet in diameter and stretching to a height three times that of the trio of guardsmen pressed against it by the crowd in their defense, filled with countless fireworks to be launched once darkness fell over the celebration. Atop the structure, a curious, spritely man hopped about - an older street magician whose shows Princess Anna had taken a liking to (mostly because they were the first she had ever seen).

At the edge of the crowd in the back of the courtyard, two guardsman stood on opposite sides of the huge archway into the ballroom. They were there more for ceremony than anything, glorified ushers assigned to verify that every guest coming in was up to the princess's dictated standards of nobility and class and, most importantly, had been issued a written invitation. On account of their trivial duties, the two guardsmen allowed their minds to wander whenever they could as they stood their posts, gazing upon the courtyard celebration.

They had both spent a lot of their time that evening watching the magician themselves. Anyone who paid attention to him noted that his antics were for the most part overshadowed by his dress, which consisted of endless frills and sequins, and with the ushers' tuned attentiveness it was plain to see that the performer's magic wasn't real.

Still, the two uniformed men standing at the edge of the crowd shifted uneasily every time he pulled an animal out of a not-so-hidden pocket in his clothing or split a deck of cards with carefully placed fingers.

Suddenly, the cheers from behind them swelled as a particularly loud man demanded that the queen perform some more magic. The guardsmen shared a fleeting, worried glance, their feelings conveyed only by their eyes. All members of the Royal Guard had been trained and practiced much not to show emotion while at work. Even with only their eyes, they both understood. They had both been thinking the same thing, after all.

Along with Isaac and a few others, the two ushers had been a part of the team sent to search for the missing William Daleon two days prior to the festival, ordered by the princess herself following Kristoff's delivery the Daleons' Farmstead. They had returned to Arendelle proper late the night before, having found the farmer relatively quickly.

It wasn't as if it had taken them much detective work. One of the Daleons' sleds was found crashed just a little bit off of the trail, having cut through a rather dense, perilously hilly wood along the straightest (albeit unpaved) path to the castle from the farmstead. The sled looked to have accidentally flipped over some time ago, its wood rotted and splintered and its frame lacking wheels.

Before long, the search party had tipped the cart back upright. That's when they discovered a hidden, broken, and dead William Daleon underneath.

There was no conclusive evidence as none of the guardsmen were medically trained, however suspicions spread amongst the men from the moment that the body had been discovered. Its thorough decomposition and the sled's wheel-less nature caused strange although not entirely unfamiliar fears to creep up within the guardsmen.

When the rescue party returned and a fellow guardsman reminded his comrades that the farmer was said to have first went missing during the queen's winter, the once doubted rumors were all but confirmed.

By the start of the festival, not a member of the Guard hadn't heard about the farmer that Queen Elsa's winter had killed.

All of them knew that Arendelle's recovery from the unexpected storm would be hard and was as of yet incomplete, but no one had ever been reported _dead_ on account of the queen's magic.

So the ushers tried their best to avoid looking at the street performer, to ignore the enthusiastic cheers in the ballroom behind them.

Ever since finding William Daleon, they hated thinking about magic. Whenever they did, their minds never failed to drift back to the wrecked cart and its most unfortunate passenger.

The tired men kept their eyes level and tried to forget, watching the sun set over the carnival that was the courtyard's share of the festival.

They were trying so hard to be distracted, however, that the ushers nearly missed it when an older woman in a dusty, plain dress broke off from the rest of the commoners and dashed towards them, setting a speedy course for the ballroom. Fortunately, one of them was pulled from his trance enough by her unexpected approach that he managed to throw out an open hand and stop the welcome but unwelcome guest in her tracks.

"Do you have an invitation?" he asked her sternly, angling his head so that his cap kept the setting sun out of his eyes.

"An invitation?" Dee Daleon's throat sounded dry, though her cheeks were wet and flushed. It occurred to the guardsman as he inspected her that the mysterious woman was either ill, had been crying, or quite possibly both.

"Can't go in here without an invitation," the other, larger guard spoke now and one could almost hear the suspicion in his words. Any Arendellien in their right mind would know that no commoners would be admitted to the ballroom.

"I need to see the queen."

The two men looked at each other, having another silent conversation with their eyes alone. They had been ordered not to let anyone in who didn't have an invitation.

"No invitation, no admission," they decided in unison.

"Can't you make an exception?"

"We're not allowed."

"Please?" Dee pleaded, looking as if she were ready to tear up again at any moment.

The guardsmen once again conferenced in a quick glance. Orders were orders.

"Sorry, ma'am. We can't."

At those two words, Dee bowed her head and growled. It was soft, but it was still undeniably a growl.

"Ma'am?" the more muscular guard stepped forward and started to kneel, thinking the widow hurt.

She saw what she thought to be an opportunity and took it.

In what was an astonishingly quick moment considering her age and density, Dee had produced a thin kitchen knife from a fold in her dress, thrown her right shoulder in front of her, and charged for the guardsman with a battle cry of a grunt.

"Hey!" his companion shouted, though his cry was drowned out by the continuing cheers for the queen within the ballroom and the random chatter without. He left his own post, darting just behind the assailant.

The other guardsman was not so quick to react.

There were three thuds: a first when the burly woman crashed into his side, a second when the impulse propelled them both into the doorframe, and a third when the two of them were knocked off of their feet by the impact. The kitchen knife clattered to the ground beside theme unused, having dropped out of Dee's reckless and misplaced hand upon impact.

The widow ended up in the burly guardsman's lap, seeming to be hurt more by the tackle than her target. "I'm sorry," she whimpered, crawling off of the man and cradling her reddened face in her hands, now a blubbering mess of a woman sprawled out on the brick floor beneath the archway.

The minimally injured usher blinked and rubbed his back, still quite confused. It was only when he saw the stand-in dagger near his feet that he began to grasp the gravity of the situation. Needless to say, he stood up in a hurry.

Another wordless conversation. Had that knife been intended for the queen? Naturally, neither of them knew the answer.

Nervously, they looked around but found that no one had so much as noticed the altercation. Everyone inside of the ballroom was too busy pestering Elsa. Everyone outside was too busy trying to figure out how to breathe in such close quarters.

"She needs to be taken to the dungeon," the guardsman who had been spared the widow's blow said. "No need to stop the celebration. I'm not sure if we could, anyway. Whoever's in charge down there tonight will deal with her. I think it's Isaac, poor guy. Are you alright?"

"I think so."

"Good. Here, I'll take her."

The proactive usher knelt down and helped the sobbing widow to her feet with cautious footing and a firm grip on each of her forearms. Once it became clear that Dee would be no more trouble, he led her gently into the ballroom, inconspicuously pushing her along through the nearest interior door.

Back at his post, the remaining guardsman noticed the knife on the ground again.

"And she thought she could get away with that?" he snickered, picking it up and shoving it carefully into a pocket. The usher then looked out over the courtyard infused with newfound vigilance, giving his back a final thoughtful rub with one hand.

* * *

"Won't you treat us to some more magic, Queen Elsa?"

In the back of the ballroom, the queen could barely see Anna, Kristoff, and another vaguely familiar man standing together in the center of the hall behind the suffocating crowd. She, like the rest of the noisy and crowded inner party, was completely oblivious to the plight at the door.

The queen had resisted the advances of her guests so far, politely throwing out a few quick jokes and weak excuses at their persistent demands for spectacle, but her patience was wearing thin. She hadn't agreed to the attend the festival as entertainment, she had agreed to attend the festival with her sister. Elsa waved desperately for Anna to rejoin her on the platform.

"Oh, she's not looking too good up there," Anna raised her eyebrows. "What do you say we go and rescue her? Come on," she said to the young man beside her.

A member of the Arendelle Royal Guard, he had come to the ballroom in his uniform, just nice enough not to look out of place among the other, predominately royal guests. It helped that Anna had personally ordered for him to come to the ballroom clean-shaven and with a fresh, short haircut.

Unfortunately, although the man had long practiced the stoicism becoming of a guardsman, there was little that his well-groomed exterior could do to cover for the purely physical signs of his present nervousness. His upper lip quivered regardless of his shaving status. His forehead sweat under the trimmed black bangs.

"What, no thanks for tracking him down?" Kristoff asked.

"I think that falls within your duties as ice master," Anna answered, turning up her nose.

"Definitely not."

"Oh," the princess said. "Thanks, then. Wait here for me, I'll be right back. Let's go, Martin."

"Yes, Princess Anna," the guardsman tipped his head in a perfectly polite nod and allowed the princess to lead him through the crowd, which seemed to split and make a path for her even though all eyes were still on the platform in the opposite direction of their appraoch.

"So, have you ever met Elsa before?"

"Met? No, well, I wouldn't say we've met. I've been the night guard for her wing a couple of times."

"Oh, good, you'll have something to talk about."

"Right," Martin started in his relatively high-pitched voice. "Listen, Princess Anna, there's something that I must tell you before we proceed."

"What is it?" Anna stopped amidst the dense crowd, about halfway back to the platform. She turned and for the first time looked the guardsman over, quickly noticing the movement under his nose and the sweat on his brow.

"Well-"

"There's no need to be nervous," Anna giggled a bit in interruption. "You're dancing with my _sister_ Elsa, not _Queen_ Elsa, okay? Don't be afraid... Wait. You do know how to dance, right? I kind of just assumed when I picked you, I mean, you looked like you would be a guy who knows how to dance, since you're always so proper all the time and-"

"It's not that," Martin interrupted, quickly adding on a, "Princess Anna," as not to be rude. "It's that search that you sent Isaac and the others out on the other day. They returned late last night. I've been assigned to report their findings to you."

"And?" Anna prompted.

"They found him."

"Really? Great!" the princess grinned. "You know, you had me scared there for a second."

"They found him dead," Martin continued.

"What?"

"He was in the forest to the west of the castle trapped under a flipped sled," the guardsman said, stopping himself in order to test for a reaction. "I hear it looked like a nasty crash."

"That's terrible," Anna said simply, hanging on the last word. Her face had grown worried, not at all the epitome of relief that it had been just before.

Martin took that as a sign that she suspected it, too.

"The other guardsmen are afraid, Princess Anna," he stated bravely.

"Huh?"

"Finding the farmer shook the search party quite a bit, and I'm sure that the stories that they told the others about it upon their return are even worse than the real account. There's not a member of the Guard who doesn't know the name and fate of William Daleon, and they're afraid."

"Wait, what are they afraid of again?"

Martin gulped and looked helplessly over at the princess. "The captain said that the farmer went missing on a trip for supplies through _Queen Elsa's winter_."

Suddenly, Anna understood the young man's unusual nervous tells.

"I thought you said he was found in a crashed sled?"

"He was. The search party reported that the sled was wheel-less and dilapidated," Martin continued. "They suspect that he's been dead nearly as long as he's been missing. They suspect that he was killed by the harshness of the storm-"

"Elsa would never hurt anyone on purpose," Anna interrupted, assuring the guardsman in a whisper, looking around to make sure no one around them had heard their discussion. Luckily, they were all still focused on the queen ahead, although their patience for her to perform another trick was finally waning. "_Never_."

Martin nodded but was obviously still unconvinced. The search party had come home too disturbed. The evidence was too overwhelming. He, like his comrades, found himself scared by the powers that had ended the farmer's life - no matter who they belonged to.

"Just dance with my sister," Anna pleaded. "I know you'll have a great time. I mean, I think I know you will. Please?"

Martin nodded again. "Of course, Princess Anna."

"Um, you can't tell her about the search party, though," the princess added, quieter. "Don't even mention it. Like I said, she would never hurt anyone. If she knew that there was even a _chance_ that she had..."

The guardsman gave a third and final nod, but this time he did not speak.

And so it came to be that as Anna led Martin up onto the platform and to the queen, all three participating parties were decidedly uncomfortable with the situation.


	5. Chapter 5

Far below the night's celebrations, Isaac lounged in the Arendelle Castle dungeon, alone and glad to be it.

When he had been assigned to the post that morning he had been absolutely ecstatic. Of course, watching over the dungeon was neither the most difficult nor heroic post considering the fact that there had been no prisoners in years (save for Queen Elsa, naturally, who no one _really_ counted), but Isaac would have it no other way.

The combined heartbreak of discovering William Daleon in the woods and then having to inform his family of his demise and serve witness to their first reactions had taken quite the toll on the young man. Since his return, Isaac had often imagined himself in the situation of the poor farmer or of his family, allowing the emotions already fresh in his mind to resurface fully.

Beyond his vicariousness, Isaac couldn't help but replay his own personal failures of the previous night over and over again in his head. He was well aware that he had the tendency to "lock up", as he and the other guardsmen called it. It happened whenever he got too angry or sad or even happy, which really meant that it happened all too much. Emotion quite often surged within the tragically compassionate guard, and when it did it was invariably met with his own muteness as he simply got too excited or upset to even speak.

When he had visited the Daleon Farmstead, Isaac's sympathy was what caused him to lock up in the widow's presence and for the umpteenth time in his life the guard hated his tendency to go silent. He knew that he couldn't control it - it had been a constant of his life since he was just a boy - but still felt as if he had let the grieving family down when his words of comfort froze in his throat, never to be spoken.

Needless to say, Isaac could think of nothing he would rather do than distract himself by pretending to read something before taking a quick nap on the job. Fortunately, the leisurely stint at the dungeon post would provide him the opportunity to do just that. He had skimmed the first page of his tiny book a couple of times over already and didn't even hear the fireworks outside yet.

The plump guard smirked to himself for the first time since they had found William Daleon. So he would have time for quite the nap.

The bliss of loneliness was fleeting, however, as Isaac's eyelids had just barely grown heavy enough to close when he was interrupted by a firm, echoing knock on the metal door behind his post at the guard desk.

"Huh?" he jumped up, momentarily confused by his grim surroundings in his drowsiness. When the knock came again he was sure that he wasn't dreaming. "Coming," he groaned. The guard sullenly slipped his boots (which he had kicked to the ground in order to be more comfortable) back on and made the short journey to the door, where he opened the small shutter just below his face level.

"Hey, Isaac," the guardsman on the other side said, squinting as he peered through the grating as if it would help him see into the scarcely-lit prison of gray brick. "Just our luck, eh? I'll bet the captain thought he was doing us rescuers a favor, putting us on such simple jobs for the festival."

"Did he not?"

"Got someone for you to watch over for the night. Open up."

Another rap on the door came in jest, bouncing off the lonely walls inside. Isaac didn't think it was very funny, but he still had to open up. He closed the shutter, yawned, took a moment to compose himself, and then unlatched and pulled open the door.

"Mrs. Daleon?" he asked instantly, the sight of the woman sulking next to the other guard and bound by his iron grip on her shoulders hitting him like a punch. His pace of speech noticeably quickened as he made a concerted effort to control his emotions. "Are you alright?"

"Mrs. Daleon?" the usher looked from the widow to the prison guard in a mix of confusion and sudden realization. "_This_ is the wife of that farmer we found?"

"Yeah, sure, I recognize her from last night," Isaac continued. "Why did you bring her down here?"

"Well _Mrs. Daleon_ here wanted into the ballroom without an invitation."

"And you saw it fit to bring her to the dungeon for that?"

"She _really_ wanted into the ballroom."

"What do you mean?"

"Charged us," the usher started nudging the woman into the room.

"No way," Isaac said. Dee whimpered in response to his sudden exclamation, her head still tilted down, concealing her puffy and red face. "Is anyone hurt?"

"Luckily not. We were able to subdue her without any disruption to the proceedings," the guard said, as if the task had been a difficult and noble feat. Isaac walked over to the dungeon's sole cell, roughly twenty paces from the entrance and to the right, ahead of the usher and his prisoner and began work on the sturdy door's several locks. Just behind him, an out of place stack of light bricks marked where the entrance to the chamber's twin _would have _been had it not been recently decommissioned by the queen.

Isaac struggled to remember which key belonged to the third and final keyhole, however he eventually produced one from his pockets that would turn. "What's the plan?"

"I don't know," the usher pushed a stumbling Dee into the secure room before swinging the door closed himself. "I'm on door duty."

"Where's the captain?"

"Probably getting drunk out of his mind somewhere or another."

"So I'm just supposed to keep her here without official charges?"

"For now you will," the usher said simply.

He didn't speak again until Isaac had locked the cell door entirely and followed him to the front of the dungeon, where they would presumably be out of earshot of the imprisoned widow.

"I know this all might sound odd to you, but the woman came at the two of us with a _knife_ when we wouldn't let her in."

"What?"

"And her stated business in the ballroom was _meeting Queen Elsa_."

The two Royal Guardsmen shared a customary silent conversation, something that Isaac was particularly good at. Before long, they were in agreement: the situation warranted a mix of confused, wrinkled brows and terrified, wide eyes.

"Look, I get where the lady is coming from considering her husband," the usher whispered now to make sure that the prisoner wasn't able to hear his confession, "but what she's done is a serious crime. I don't think she'll be much trouble - I searched her on the way down, she's got nothing else on her - while we wait for the captain's word on the matter. You will have to watch over her here until then."

"I understand."

"I'll keep an eye out for the captain," the other guardsman pledged, "but I wouldn't expect anything until morning. I'm sorry," he said, but was sure to shuffle through the exit in a hurry afterwards.

Isaac stood in the Arendelle Castle dungeon, now no longer alone and quite unhappy to be it.

* * *

"Anna," Elsa said harshly once the princess emerged from the crowd and onto the platform, Martin by her side.

"I know, sorry, sorry," Anna apologized. The crowd began to dissipate from around them once the sisters had started talking and the guests realized that their chances for another show were all but nonexistent. "I just saw someone that I wanted you to meet. This is Martin," the princess casually pushed the young man forward and he stumbled briefly as he went.

"Queen Elsa," Martin bowed slightly, taking the opportunity to steal a quick, instinctive glance at the queen's hands.

"Hello," Elsa said suspiciously. She had seen the guardsman around the castle a few times over the past couple of years, always standing near-motionless in front of some door or another in that same pressed green uniform. She never remembered having spoken to him. Now, she noticed, he looked quite a bit meeker than he did when she had spied him at his posts, and he definitely had a voice to fit.

Either way, she knew that she was not particularly interested in having anything to do with Martin.

She hoped that this wasn't what she thought it was.

"I thought that you two could dance."

"What? No."

"I know you don't usually dance and all but it's like-"

"I don't _usually_ dance? I don't dance at all. Period," Elsa interrupted. "Sorry Martin," she finished, shooting the guardsman a smile that was half sweet and half almost threatening.

"No, please, it's quite alright, Queen-"

"Hold on a second," Anna told him before he could finish. She motioned for Elsa to turn towards the throne with her and they began to speak in hunched-over semi-privacy.

"I'm not dancing."

"Elsa, please?"

"No. I'm not dancing. Especially not with a member of the Royal Guard."

"Maybe I could find someone else?"

"Anna!"

"You don't have to dance. You could just, I don't know, _talk_ or something."

Elsa almost hissed.

"Come on, I can't stay with you all night. I at least want to spend a _little_ bit of time with Kristoff. Just stand here with Martin for fifteen minutes, okay? That's all I ask."

The queen frowned.

"He's cute," Anna offered.

Her sister did want her to enjoy the festival.

"Please?"

Elsa's shoulders dropped and the princess knew that she had won once again.

"Thank you," Anna whispered sincerely.

The sisters turned back to Martin. Somehow, he looked even more uncomfortable than before, though he still maintained the perfect posture of one at least trying to keep his image of decency.

"No dancing," Anna said. "Sorry, Martin."

"No, please, I did not mean to offend-"

"But Queen Elsa would like for you to stay with her _right here_ while I go and run a very important errand," the princess continued, trying to sound as authoritative as possible despite her sister's quiet accompanying scoff. "You may talk, if you'd like."

"Um, yes, Princess Anna," Martin squeaked. "Of course."

"I'll be back in fifteen minutes," Anna nudged her sister.

"Right."

And then Elsa and guardsman were left alone on the platform.

* * *

"This is creepy," Kristoff commented.

Anna had tracked the ice master down again as quickly as she could after leaving the platform, however instead of enjoying the festival's delights with him had opted to lead her boyfriend to a spot behind a curtain in the back of the ballroom where she could keep a watchful eye on her sister.

"Shush, I'm trying to listen," Anna said, peeking out over the crowd.

"Listen? There's a whole party between you and them, not to mention the band," Kristoff pointed out. "And it doesn't look like they're talking, anyway."

"We just have to be patient," Anna insisted. "Dancing would have helped break the ice-"

"Good one."

"-but this was the only way that I could get her to do it."

"Look, doesn't this seem a little weird to you? Maybe they're just not a good match."

"Maybe," the princess shrugged. "I thought they'd be perfect for each other. They're both always so polite about everything. And neither of them ever talk much... I mean _look_ at them."

On the platform, Elsa and Martin stood side by side, both content to simply take in the crowd before them.

"Aren't all of the Royal Guards supposed to be the quiet, standing around type?"

"Martin was the only one who blushed when I asked them who wanted to dance with Elsa at the festival."

"Oh, come on!"

"No harm in trying."

"I don't know. The guy looks like he could be in some pain."

Anna rolled her eyes.

The band started another song, and then another. On the platform, Elsa and Martin were statues.

"Maybe you're right," the princess admitted. "This was probably just a mistake."

"Probably."

"Let's just-"

Anna saw Elsa's mouth move just before she was going to turn away.

"Oh no."

"Yes!" the princess cheered. "Look at her lips - try to figure out what she's saying."

"I can't read lips."

"Oh," Anna said, disappointed. "Why are you here, then?"

"Because you basically dragged me over here!"

* * *

"Do you see my sister, too?" Elsa asked, a sudden interruption to the relative quiet atop the platform.

"Huh?" Martin asked, looking over to make sure that the queen was indeed talking to him. When he saw that she was, he wasn't sure whether to be relieved or worried.

"She's over there with the royal ice master. To the left, behind those drapes. Do you see her?"

Martin flicked his head over, catching sight of the red-haired princess just before she jumped behind one of the ballroom's many columns. Kristoff was left in plain view, leaning against the wall behind her and waving at the guardsman lazily. "Oh," Martin said.

"You may have suspected this, but she didn't have any urgent errand to run off to," Elsa stated. "Really, she just wanted you and me to spend some time together for whatever reason."

"I thought so," the guardsman chirped.

"I don't want to be here."

"Me neither, really," Martin said in haste, clearing his throat once he had realized his rudeness. "All of the people," he stammered in recovery. "I just, um, I mean, no offense to you, Queen Elsa."

"Why do you do that?"

"Do what?"

"Your voice always changes when you say 'Queen Elsa'. You make it go deeper."

"Oh," Martin's sweating intensified. "I don't know. It sounds more serious."

"And my name is meant to sound serious?"

"I, uh, I think so."

Elsa giggled a little.

"What's so funny?"

"Nothing, it's just... You sound plenty serious with your normal voice. You don't have to say my name special."

"Have you heard my voice?"

Elsa giggled again. "It's not as bad as you think."

"And yet you instantly knew what I was talking about."

Both of them had loosened up slightly, signaled by their ensuing shared albeit mutually reserved laughter.

"I'm sorry," Elsa said.

"It's fine. The other guys are always making fun of me for it. I'm used to it."

"It's really not that bad, though."

The burst of conversation died and made room for the return of silence to the platform.

This time, for some inexplicable reason, Elsa wasn't okay with that.

"The people _are_ awful, aren't they?

"There's so many of them."

"I know."

"They're so loud."

"I _know_."

"My sister made me come to the festival," Elsa admitted.

"She made me come, too."

"I figured."

More silence.

"Do you mind if I ask you something?"

"Of course not," Martin said. He kept his voice level when he finished with, "Queen Elsa."

"Are you afraid of me?"

"Sorry?"

"When Anna brought you over here it looked like you wanted nothing to do with me," Elsa said. "You looked scared."

"I'm so sorry," the guardsman turned to his queen, terror painted across his face.

"You're doing it again now."

"I'm sorry, I'm not scared," Martin quickly composed himself, but he was unable to hide the remnants of his previous feelings. A drip of sweat ran from his forehead down the side of his nose.

"You looked pretty scared."

"Well, I mean, I was, Queen Elsa, but, uh, I'm not anymore," Martin paused, wiping a droplet from his cheek with a handkerchief. "Um, well, not scared, just, uh, nervous, you know. You are the queen and I was supposed to dance and... You know."

"You looked at my hands."

The young man gulped but said nothing more.

"I don't blame you," Elsa said, her shoulders suddenly weighty.

"I'm not afraid," Martin replied truthfully. His banter with the queen had actually eliminated most of the fear that he had stepped onto the platform with, however he couldn't even begin to explain such things. The guardsman remembered Anna's warning. He was forbidden to admit to the queen why he had been afraid in the first place.

"I know that I'm scary. I just wanted to hear someone else say it. Everyone just..."

Elsa didn't finish. She couldn't even finish in front of a mirror.

Silence fell upon the platform again and by then the queen had gone back to not wanting to interrupt it.

* * *

Meanwhile, the lone guardsman sat in the dungeon and felt sorry for himself. He had just wanted a nice, relaxing evening and instead had been treated to not only a prisoner to watch over but one that was the embodiment of the very things he was trying desperately to forget.

He opened his book and then remembered that he hated reading. He closed his eyes but could not sleep. It seemed that there would be no escape from his newfound responsibility.

"Isaac, was it?" Dee's unexpected voice came from the cell, though to Isaac it was nearly impossible to place. Her words bounced off of the damp stone walls and by the time they had made their way through the grate and to the front of the dungeon they seemed to be barreling at him from all directions at once. That was not to mention the fact that the widow hadn't spoken once since entering, causing her sudden vocalization itself to surprise the guard considerably.

In fact, Isaac found himself so unnerved by the echoing elimination of silence that he rose from his post, tiptoed to the cell door beyond the desk, and peered through its small, uncovered window before asking, "what was that?"

"Your name. It's Isaac, is it not? You're the one who came to us last night."

Isaac sighed. Although the lighting was ever lessening as the sun set outside the cell's singular barred window, he could still see Dee on the floor inside, a crouching bundle of hastily sewn cloth right where the other guardsman had left her. "I am," he said. He knew that he wasn't supposed to fraternize with the prisoner, but was unable to forget the night before, when he had been _assigned_ to do just that and much more as a harbinger of the very worst sort of news to the woman and her son. There was a connection to the widow that he couldn't deny - a preexisting sympathy that laid unsteadily latent within him for just a day's time and was all too quick to reawaken.

"I must apologize for my behavior," Dee continued. She was turned away from the door, her words ricocheting with an impact off of the far wall and back in Isaac's direction. "I didn't mean for things to turn out like this."

"Most people who end up here don't," the guard stated, a quiet joke amplified by the walls around him to an embarrassing volume. He wasn't sure if what came from the cell in response was a whimper or a chuckle, so he hissed, "sorry," to cover his bases regardless.

"I was very upset last night," Dee continued. "You know that better than perhaps anyone."

"I-"

"William was a good man," the widow declared, stopping and letting her words scratch out of her throat and across the walls and then dull into silence before proceeding. "You know he did it for us - my son and me. We were running out of firewood and food and when the storm started to get worse we all knew that we wouldn't last much longer. William set out for the castle just a few hours before it ended. He went to get supplies for us."

"I'm sorry, ma'am," Isaac said, half just assuring himself that he_ could_ still speak.

"I knew," Dee ignored the man's condolences, deeming them misplaced. "I knew what had happened that night. I knew that if William were okay - even if he were sick or injured or anything short of dead - he would have been back as soon as the snow melted. I knew that he should have been back with fresh firewood and maybe even a few berries from the forest to hold us over. I knew that William would never leave us," the widow stopped, hanging on the tragic irony for a moment. "And as every day passed afterward, I knew what had happened that night even more. I was foolish to have acted as I did last night," Dee flung an arm out wildly, thrusting a fist to the ground with such power that a lesser woman or anyone else for that matter would have winced in pain. "I knew. I wasn't surprised when you came."

Isaac stayed silent, not fully mute but feeling emotion bubble up within him. He felt bad for intruding on something so personal but at the same time felt a certain obligation to linger and hear what the widow had to say. The guardsman felt as if he were both wanted and unwanted. He couldn't decide himself whether he wanted to stay or leave.

"When you came, it ignited something new inside of me. Every since the day he left, I had been struggling with grief that I would only wish upon my worst enemy," Dee soldiered on, her damaged thoughts pouring effortlessly out of her mouth. "Last night, I felt no more grief. It was replaced entirely, transformed into a different beast. I wasn't sad anymore. I was angry."

The widow turned her head suddenly and now looked back through the door. It was _her_ turn for _her_ eyes to be apologetic and sad and angry and embarrassed and so many other things.

"I have made a grave mistake," Dee said gutturally, her eyes still locked on Isaac's as if they were searching for comfort but knew they would find none. "Revenge, I said. I said that it would be revenge. It was revenge and I was going to_ kill_ her."

Despite her admission, Isaac's opinion was unchanged. He couldn't help but feel sorry for the widow.

The eye contact went uninterrupted as neither of them even dared to blink. But it had to come to an end eventually.

"How wrong I was, Isaac," Dee breathed out, dropping her head back in front of her body and away from the door. "Revenge, I said, when it was only murder."

The woman descended into weeping cries once more, her cell fully darkened as the moon and stars rose in the sky.

"I see clearly now!" she wailed. "Tomorrow I will be executed, having shamed my husband's name in my rashness."

Isaac shuddered at the very thought. Surely that was not to be her fate.

"If only I could make things right before then. I cannot change what I have done, but maybe I could explain... Maybe I could apologize... Maybe I could show her that I understand now, before I die..."

The widow trailed off into shuddering, sobbing noises.

"Her?"

Dee was unable to control herself, barely getting out the answer between gasping breaths of sorrow.

"Queen Elsa."

* * *

"They stopped talking," Anna commented from her spot behind the curtain. "Why did they stop talking?

"I'm not surprised," Kristoff chimed in. "It was looking pretty painful for the both of them."

"Quick, she's looking this way!"

Anna again ducked behind the nearest column. Kristoff again didn't see the point, instead making eye contact with Elsa from across the ballroom. The queen mouthed something to him.

"I think she says that she wants you to get back over there," the ice master said. "Now."

"So you _can_ read lips?"

"No, I'm just guessing. She looks pretty upset."

"Upset? How upset are we talking?"

"Pretty upset."

"You don't think he told her, do you?"

"About what?"

"The farmer."

"You mean she doesn't know about what they found?"

"She doesn't even know that they started _looking_."

Kristoff turned to Anna, who was still pressing herself against the column and now let out a nervous giggle. "Anna," he scolded.

"I couldn't tell her," Anna said, suddenly serious.

"You know she'll find out eventually."

"Yeah," Anna hung her shoulders dejectedly, "and I'll be the one to tell her. _After_ the festival, okay?" she suddenly flicked her head back up defiantly. "She would be devastated. Elsa couldn't stand it if she thought she hurt someone. If she knew that that farmer died in her storm..."

Kristoff was silent, but his face made it clear that the gesture didn't equate to approval.

"She doesn't need that right now."

Anna leaned over from behind the column, peeking her head out just enough to see her sister still watching her position sternly.

"Oh, phew," the princess whispered. "I thought you said she looked upset."

"She _does _look upset."

"I know my sister. That's not Elsa's upset face, that's her angry face. Looks like it's our lucky day."

"How is that a good thing?"

"Wait, wait, who is that?" Anna squinted. "Another guy from the Royal Guard?"

* * *

Isaac had regretted his choice since the moment that he had made it, but seemed unable to turn back and return to the dungeon regardless. Not even when he had to sneak past the two ballroom guards on his way to party's other sentinels on the platform at the back of the hall did his speedy pace lessen. It was a terrible decision made in passion and sorrow - even he knew that - but it was perhaps for that very reason that he could not will himself to unmake it.

"Isaac!" Martin grinned when he saw the other man come out of the crowd and onto the platform (a privilege which was, admittedly, not usually afforded to even members of the Royal Guard, a fact which Isaac was aware of but had chosen to ignore). The two guardsmen had been acquaintances since they were children - and actually had joined the Guard in tandem - and, despite their tendency to be assigned to different outfits on account of their history of woefully inefficient cooperative ventures, the two had continued their friendship into adulthood.

Martin couldn't have been happier. He was going to be rescued!

"Hello Martin," Isaac said politely, well aware of his friend's peculiar festival assignment. "Queen Elsa," he bowed his head as he turned slightly to the queen. He, too, was caught staring at her hands.

"Hello," Elsa returned the gesture with an uncomfortable mix of her natural grace and surprised awkwardness. "Is there a problem?"

"You're needed in the dungeon," Isaac spat out. He knew himself. If he delayed it any longer it probably would never have been said. "Right away."

"I understand," Martin chirped, playing along with what in his eyes was a cunning escape plan. "It _can_ get to be a handful down there. I'm sorry, Queen Elsa, but I must take my-"

"_Queen Elsa_ is needed in the dungeon," Isaac said, tacking on, "right away," once more to be absolutely clear. The regret was beginning to sink in, but Isaac figured he still had a few more fleeting moments of at least being comprehensible before he descended into a nervous, mute mess like he had the night before.

"What?"

"The dungeon?" Elsa asked. "Is something wrong? I wasn't aware that we had any prisoners."

"We do now," Isaac started going as fast as he could, determined to convince the queen to come with him before his mind was overtaken by his own doubt (which didn't afford him a very large window). He easily would have persuaded her, too, if she were able to understand his rapid-fire explanation. "It's the wife of that farmer we found. Just got in tonight, actually. Maybe half an hour ago. It's a funny story, really. Couldn't get in without an invitation, something like that. And then there was something about a knife - I'm not really clear on that one - and she got brought down to the dungeon. So I was watching her, you know, like I'm supposed to, and she gets to wailing about how sorry she was and how she just wished she could talk to you and I couldn't just-"

"Slow down," Elsa commanded. It was an order that only the queen herself could give, more stern in tone than anything either of the guardsmen had heard from their captain. "Start from the beginning. What's all of this about a farmer?"

"Queen Elsa, I'm sure that this is a matter of the Royal Guard. You shouldn't bother yourself with such trivial things," Martin shot a warning glance to his friend, recalling the look Anna had given him not too long before.

Unfortunately, Isaac knew that he was running a tight schedule and didn't have time to consider it.

"William Daleon. You know, the missing one that turned up in the forest yesterday. His wife is in the dungeon. She wants to talk to you."

"I really don't think-"

"Hold on. Missing? Turned up? Is he alright?" Elsa remembered the farmer's name from the care packages that she had ordered to be sent out a few days before.

"Queen Elsa-"

"Alright? Well, no, not really. We found the guy dead."

All of the color in Isaac's face drained at an astonishingly fast rate. His friend sighed beside him. When Elsa gasped in response to the revelation, the poor guardsman finally became a silent collection of worry and dread just as he had anticipated.

"A missing man was found _dead_ yesterday? And I wasn't informed of this?" Elsa asked, furious, but she found no answers in Isaac anymore. All that remained of him was two pleading eyes. "Well?"

"Sorry, he, uh, does that," Martin interjected, bravely reminding the queen of his existence.

"Well?" she repeated, now looking to the other man.

"I'm sorry, Queen Elsa. I believe it was reported to the proper authorities."

"But not to me?"

Martin fidgeted. He glanced across the crowd below them. Elsa followed his eyes.

"Anna?" the queen looked over across the hall to her sister. The princess's reconnaissance had become much less secretive and now she didn't even attempt to hide herself behind a column or one of the other guests under Elsa's scrutiny, instead standing on her tiptoes as if it would help her make out what all of the fuss on the platform was about. The puzzle started to come together in Elsa's head but she still felt as if she were missing a few key pieces. "Why did she want to keep Mr. Daleon's death from me?"

"I don't know, Queen Elsa," Martin squeaked. It sounded like he could have been lying, but, then again, he always sounded like that.

"Someone does," Elsa turned to the other guardsman once more. "You said that William Daleon's wife is in the dungeon?"

Isaac managed a nod.

"And she wishes to speak with me?"

Isaac nodded again.

"Then she must have something to say."

The queen took off without another word. She darted down from the platform, now not bothering with gracefulness but still never missing a step as she wove through the dancing crowd. A few of the guests that she passed greeted her as they had before, however Elsa only acknowledged them with the occasional nod.

"Queen Elsa!" Martin shouted after her. He glanced over to a sheepish Isaac before they followed the queen through the crowd, trying desperately to catch up.

"Elsa?" from across the room, Anna also started after her sister, pulling Kristoff behind her on the way to the door that led to the quickest route to the dungeon.

Elsa arrived at the door with a considerable head start. She looked first to the guardsmen coming up behind her in the crowd, and then to the princess and the ice master rapidly approaching her from the side. Both groups called out to her, attracting the attention of even more of the guests.

They were hiding something from her, Elsa was certain of that much. And now she was determined to find out what it was - unhindered by their secrecy.

The queen turned and flung open the door, dashing forward and then slamming it behind her with a crack that quickly made everyone in the hall aware of her disappearance.

All four of the pursuers arrived to the door at the same time, just seconds after it had closed. Anna reached out to try the handle first.

"It won't turn," she said. The princess grasped the brass knob with both hands and tried to pull it back with all of her strength, but it was useless. After a few moments, she was forced to stop when she noticed that merely touching the metal had begun irritating her hand. "Ice cold," she whispered, staring at her now reddened palms. "It's frozen shut."


	6. Chapter 6

"What happened?" Anna demanded, yielding the task of opening the frozen door to Kristoff before turning back to Isaac and Martin.

The guardsmen looked at each other and then around at their surroundings. The festivities in the ballroom had ground to an awkward halt with the queen's disappearance. It would suffice to say that Anna wasn't the only one in the room awaiting the men's response. Even at the front door, the ushers held their breaths now as they stared at their comrades.

"Well," Martin began, clearing his throat but failing to make his voice any lower than usual. "I... I'm not really sure. Isaac?"

The guardsman gestured to his friend and every guest in the hall followed his movement with their eyes. Isaac gulped, glancing quickly from Martin to Anna and then to the crowd in a repeating cycle.

"Well?" Anna asked, hands on her hips.

"Isaac has trouble explaining things sometimes," Martin cut in.

The princess groaned. "Looks like it's up to you, then."

The crowd's attention was redirected back onto Martin.

"Right," the young guardsman said. His sweating had returned and increased tenfold under the other guests' scrutiny. "I only know what he managed to get out before he locked up," Martin stalled, but he knew that he would have to tell the truth eventually. "Something about a prisoner in the dungeon. William Daleon's wife."

Anna gasped in horror, followed by a similar reaction from the party guests around her. The entire ballroom descended into chatter as the dignitaries speculated as to who the mysterious Mr. Daleon was and what his wife had done to warrant such a response from the princess. Only a limited number of the guests knew the truth as the farmer's death had yet to have been formally reported, but the few members of the Royal Guard scattered throughout the crowd - as well as the two ushers at the entryway - breathed a deep sigh of understanding in unison.

"You _told _her?" Anna took a step towards the guardsmen and asked quietly, the noisy responses having made her more conscious of her unwanted audience.

"I'm sorry, Princess Anna. I tried," Martin apologized, also adopting a hushed tone that the crowd surrounding him had to struggle to make words out of. "Isaac didn't know that it was a secret-"

His voice was interrupted by a particularly loud collective shout that flowed in from the courtyard. The uproar failed to distract any of the inner party's guests' attention, however, as what was unfolding before them was far too interesting. Everyone figured that the cheap performer on the central stage had pulled off an unusually impressive trick.

Martin sighed. "I should have done more," he decided on for a finish.

"I have to go after her."

"Might be harder than you think. The door won't budge," Kristoff said, giving the handle a few more aggressive attempts before giving up altogether and shoving his hands deep into his pockets to warm them.

At the ballroom's door, the larger usher was the first person in the hall to grow tired of the conversation. Although the other guests remained intrigued by the developing situation, the guardsman considered himself to have heard enough of the queen in the last day. He turned and looked out over the courtyard just as the terrace broke out into another shrieking fit.

"I'll go another way, then," Anna said. She quickly calculated the quickest alternative path in her head. She knew the castle like the back of her hand. After all, for years the exploration of its nooks and crannies had been one of her few forms of entertainment. "There's a side door in the courtyard. It won't take that much longer to get there, I might even be able to-"

"Hey!" the once disinterested usher interrupted her with a shout, instantly darting out of the ballroom and into the courtyard.

The large man's nearby outburst was enough to finally tear the rest of the dignitaries' attention from the princess. Within moments, everyone in attendance was acutely aware of the continuing noise from the courtyard. Those nearest to the archway looked over and quickly took a couple of steps back in surprise. Those further away tried to get a good view of whatever was causing the fuss over their fellow guests' heads. When they saw it, they instinctively started backing away from the entrance, too.

"What's going on?" Anna asked when the other usher also took off out of the ballroom, barking after his partner. She pushed through the crowd (which, for once, didn't shuffle out of her way on account of their shock) until she reached its front, stepping just under the arching doorframe. "What?" she gasped, trying to make sense of the scene unfolding in the plaza.

Darkness had almost fully descended upon the castle's exterior, making it difficult for the princess to fully see the situation. She could, however, tell that the terrace was in complete disarray. The dark forms of commoners in the night moved as one with increased speed, volume, and purpose towards the outer gates, pushing those in front of them hurriedly as they went. But Anna's eyes didn't rest on the amorphous mass of guests for long. Her gaze went to the wooden structure in the center of the courtyard, a place that the fleeing commoners invariably avoided in their paths away from the ballroom. A small ring of space had formed around the makeshift stage - the eye of the storm that threatened the sea of celebrators. And Anna instantly saw why.

Atop the structure, she spied the street magician that she had hired for the festival, however he wasn't alone as he should have been. Another man, a towering, bulky figure whose face and true shape were shielded by both his plain, crimson hooded robe and the night, joined the performer on his stage. The mysterious man stood behind the magician, holding him firmly in place on the edge, a muscular, gloved hand curled around the back of the his neck.

Anna's eyes widened. "What?" she muttered, but no one could hear her as the party inside of the ballroom succumbed to the panic that had already overrun the celebration outside.

"What is that man doing?"

"Oh my!"

"Someone stop him!"

Outside, the fearsome man bellowed over the chaos that coursed below him, waving his free hand in the air for emphasis. "Where are you all going? You don't want to see a few more tricks?"

"Anna!" Kristoff joined the princess just inside the entrance to the ballroom, standing beside her in the opening but unable to look away from the man on the stage. "Who is that guy? He's not entertainment, is he?"

"No," Anna turned to the ice master. Behind him, Martin and Isaac pushed through the crowd alongside a few other guardsmen, leaving the more prestigious guests of the party to cower towards the back of the hall, a few of them even daring to step onto the royal platform, their propriety clouded by the mayhem. "I've never seen him before. How is he-"

The princess paused when she looked back to the courtyard, squinting to make out the new activity on the right side of the terrace. Six members of the Royal Guard, among them the two ushers, emerged from the swirl of commoners and into the deserted area surrounding the stage. They moved in formation - two rows of three - towards the structure, the front guardsman of each row crouched slightly and bearing a long, polished spear.

"Step down!" one of the men shouted as they neared the wooden cylinder, their declaration barely audible over the sheer magnitude of the confused shouts surrounding them. The courtyard was about half cleared by then, however progress had slowed in the evacuation as those outside of the gates who had deemed themselves safe stopped and turned to get a good look at whatever it was that they had run away from.

The stranger atop the stage chuckled. "You're not in the position to be making that order," he spat, his face turning down to look at the group of guardsmen but remaining hidden under the folds of his hood. "I think that you all had better step down yourselves and listen to what _I _have to say," the man on the platform warned, tightening his grip on the performer's neck to a squealing response.

"Step down!" one of the guardsman repeated as the formation continued its march forward.

"Not much for hostages, are you? Fine," the giant man released the street magician, pushing him to the floor of the stage. The old performer whimpered, relieved to have avoided one danger but all too aware that more most likely lay ahead.

"Step down!" the guardsmen had arrived at their destination and now stood just below the short tower. The leaders pointed their spears up towards the unknown man above them in the darkness, however the pointed tips didn't even reach half way.

"I will not step down!" the man shouted so loudly that everyone in both the courtyard and the ballroom was sure to not only hear him but give him their undivided attention. His words intruded into every guest's ears and thoughts, and even those continuing their panicked flee had to look back and see what the tormentor had planned. Only once there was a stunned relative quiet across the courtyard did he continue.

The stranger seemed to rotate on the stage, his movement unclear due to the darkness and his flowing cloak. He threw his hands up in the air together and with a sharp, cutting sound that hissed from the stage to the gate and into the ballroom a flame erupted out of his sleeves - a sudden flash of maroon light in the center of the terrace. The conflagration lapped at the air above, viciously snapping in each direction and flicking sparks onto the man's shoulders as brownness left its hue and it burnt through lighter reds before reaching a consistent orange.

"No way," Anna and Kristoff whispered in the same moment, still glued to their places under the archway. Beside them, the amassed guardsmen jumped in fright, their fears realized before them. Their comrades under the stage did the same. All of the rest of the guests, commoners and dignitaries alike, resumed shouting and pushing on their way to either the front gate of the courtyard or, in the case of the inner party's guests, the platform at the back of the ballroom even more vigorously, desperately trying to put as much distance between them and the threat as possible.

Everyone recognized what they saw with the ball of fire cradled in the man's raised hands.

It was magic and, unlike the parlor tricks that it had replaced on the stage, it was _real_.

* * *

Elsa made good time to the dungeon, motivated by her own desire to know the truth of the circumstances. There was no doubt in her mind that Anna - and, by extension, the Royal Guard - were hiding something from her and she had pieced together from Isaac's confusing account that it was somehow related to the keep's new prisoner and her late husband. Just what the secret was Elsa didn't attempt to guess, partially because she was afraid of what it may be and partially because she assumed that it would be revealed regardless as soon as she got a chance to talk to Dee Daleon. As Elsa opened the door the dungeon - left unlocked in Isaac's haste to get to the ballroom - she was as impatient as she was apprehensive.

"Hello?" she asked uneasily, entering the slightly damp room beyond. It was pitch black in the dungeon, unlike the servant-managed - albeit remote - hallways which Elsa had just moved through. The queen squinted and barely managed to make out the shape of a lantern on the guard desk in front of her. She only tripped once as she stumbled her way over towards it.

Feeling around cautiously, she was very thankful to find a box of matches also resting on the smooth stone of the table. When she struck the match, the weak light illuminated the dungeon only marginally, flickering and casting strange shadows with the help of the walls' uneven bricks. Still, it was enough to see, and once she had transferred the flame into the lamp, Elsa started forward towards where she knew the cells to be at the back of the enclosure.

"Hello?" she repeated.

"Queen Elsa!" the response came immediately this time, increasing the queen's confidence marginally as she started over to the dungeon's singular functioning cell, holding the lamp far ahead of her to light the way and keep her shaking legs from losing their balance on any of the other dips in the floor.

Upon reaching the entrance, she noticed that it was nearly impossible for her to see inside. The grated entrance blocked the majority of her lantern's light from bleeding into the small room beyond and natural light had retreated from the cell's sole interior window. By the sound of her phlegm-steeped voice, Elsa placed the widow somewhere near the door, however even when she raised the lantern to eye level she could only make out the prisoner's silhouette at best.

"Hello, Mrs. Daleon," the queen said. She shifted uncomfortably and lowered the lamp once more, unsure of how to proceed. She had been so focused on getting to the dungeon as quickly as possible that she had thought little of what to say once she got there. "You wanted to see me?" she offered.

"I... I wasn't sure that you would come," Dee admitted, seeming just as unprepared as the queen. She stepped closer to the cell door and now the two women could hear each other's nervous breaths despite one remaining all but invisible under the cover of darkness.

"Why are you here?"

"What? They didn't tell you?"

Elsa sighed. "They don't tell me a lot of things," she said, her mind too busy to even think about hiding her frustration.

"I see."

There was a momentary silence as both women calculated what to say next. Dee was quicker.

"They caught me trying to get into the ballroom."

Elsa jerked her head back in surprise. "That's it?"

"I was insistent," Dee clarified, her tone deepening and, to Elsa, suddenly quite intimidating. "I attacked one of the guards."

"What?" Elsa asked in disbelief. She sized up the dark shape of the woman once again, her thick features given new meaning by her admission. "I assure you, you weren't missing _that _much."

Dee chuckled, but the sound was joyless, a formality. "I wasn't looking to dance," she said. Her laughter melted into deadly seriousness again, her lips quivered under the pressure of the words to follow. "I wanted to see _you_."

"_Me_?" Elsa gasped. The queen racked her brain for a reason that the farmer would want an audience with her so desperately but came up with nothing.

"Oh, Queen Elsa!" Dee wailed loudly enough for the other woman to wince at the resultant echo. The widow began to cry, only speaking now in between difficult breaths.

"What's wrong? I'm here - it's okay," Elsa tried to calm the woman, although she wasn't entirely sure why she was so upset in the first place.

"I'm sorry, Queen Elsa! I'm so sorry!"

When Dee ignored Elsa's soothing words altogether, the queen felt her body freeze. Something was wrong. She wanted nothing more than to comfort the widow, however the latter's sudden break into hysterics caused worry to rise quickly within the younger woman.

She never even remembered having _met_ Mrs. Daleon, so what could possibly be so upsetting about her presence?

"I'm sure it was just a misunderstanding," Elsa stammered, pulling herself out of her rapidly processing thoughts. "I'll have the Royal Guard release you as soon as I can-"

"No, no, there was no misunderstanding," Dee huffed. "I'm so sorry. I was so upset after William..."

The widow's words were overpowered by her grief.

Was that what this was all about?

"I should be the one apologizing," Elsa said. "I'm sorry for your loss. I have heard that your husband was one of Arendelle's finest-"

"No, Queen Elsa," Dee said firmly, only her resolve managing to finally pierce through her sobs. "No, I don't blame you anymore. You don't have to apologize. I was mistaken. It wasn't your fault. He was just being William. He was just trying to get us supplies. He-"

"Wait, what did you just say?"

Dee fell silent, confused by the sudden question. "What do you mean?" she sniffled.

_Anymore._

In Elsa's head, dozens of different facts clicked together, attaching themselves to the word that still rang through her mind. Anna's secrecy, Dee's insistence, and the little of Isaac's explanation that she had understood all revealed themselves to her anew in one moment, strung together now in a chain of utter clarity. A fleeting sense of satisfaction swept over the queen as she solved the puzzle, however her breath was quick to catch in her throat when she realized the logical conclusion that the realization led her to.

"No," she pleaded quietly, directed at no one in particular. Her grip loosened on the lamp as her whole body jerked in reflection of the turmoil within.

She could see no other explanation. Everything made sense. Sudden, dreadful, important sense.

"How did William Daleon die?" Elsa demanded, unaware of the harshness in her voice and the question itself until long after the words had been said.

Dee's jaw hung open on the other side of the door, unseen emotions exploding across her face behind the impenetrable shade. "You don't know?" she coughed out.

Elsa shook her head, but in truth had already guessed it.

"He was out on a supply run last month," Dee recounted the story that Isaac had told her after he had finally calmed down the night before. "They found his sled flipped over by... The storm."

The lantern clattered to the floor, a rush of air sweeping the modest flame from its cradle within and plunging the hallway around Elsa into a darkness as deep as that of the chamber it guarded.

* * *

Far above and unbeknownst to the queen and prisoner, the courtyard continued to drain of people as commoners scurried through the gates. Those so lucky as to have been admitted to the inner party went in the opposite direction, clustering in the back of the ballroom. The atmosphere was thunderous and messy across the breadth of what remained of the celebration, however the chaotic masses were united by two factors: their fear and their inability to look away from the man who towered before them, holding a ball of fire in his bare hands.

In a quick gesture, the cloaked figure flung the flames downward. All of the spectators shrieked even louder and fled even faster than they had before as it barreled towards the party of guardsmen below. The once brave men now yelled out in horror themselves, diving away from their positions and into the swarm moving quickly towards the gates.

Moments later, the ground that they had deserted exploded in a violent array of oranges and reds. A few seconds later, a puddle of smoldering soot marked where the valiant formation had formerly stood.

"Not so insistent now, are you?" the phantom atop the wooden structure bellowed, chuckling dryly as he did. "See? There is no need to be brave! Give into your fears! Run, people of Arendelle! Not even the Royal Guard can stand against my magic!" his voice continued to ring throughout the terrace.

With the absence of his magical flames, the man had once again sentenced the courtyard to near complete darkness. He took a moment to turn and survey his work, finding the courtyard all but clear of the vague shapes of people now. The only ones who remained were a few of the humbled guardsmen standing reluctantly beside the gates, torn betwixt what they knew to be their duty and their greatest terror.

"Good, good," the stranger assessed. Once he had completed his slow spin, the invisible face under the hood looked to the ballroom.

"We need to get out of here," someone inside said, their statement met with universal agreement. The wide opening of the arching entrance made the hall an easy target and, despite their positions in the back corners of the room, all of the guests felt exposed. If the figure before them was as strong as his size indicated, it was quite possible that the next ball of fire could be delivered through the archway even taking the considerable distance into account. The dignitaries would be in danger as long as they stayed in the ballroom, although despite recognition of this fact there was little movement in the crouching, fearful congregation.

The one who was in the most danger, however, was neither crouching nor fearful. Anna stood stubbornly at the front of the room just inside of the archway's huge, open double doors. Kristoff and Martin sulked a few steps behind her on either side, neither sharing the princess's unprecedented bravery but dutifully following all the same. Bringing up the rear of the defiant crew was Isaac, who was presently wishing that he had joined the other present members of the Royal Guard in drifting backwards towards the throne after seeing their fellow guardsmen humiliated a few moments before.

Although her three companions' resolves and gazes wavered under the cloaked man's inspection, Anna still felt the eyes of the people on her back in her sister's absence and willed herself to squint through the returned blackness at the stage with a mix of confusion, disbelief, and undeniable duty.

"Who are you?" she shouted across the terrace, stunning everyone behind her with her courage. The clamor of the guests quieted as they awaited an answer as well.

The princess's demand didn't seem to surprise the figure above nearly as much.

"The princess," he growled, the address barely intelligible considering the roar coursing through it.

Anna took a step forward but was stalled by a firm hand on each of her shoulders.

"Anna," Kristoff warned quietly from her left.

Martin said nothing, but retained his grip on the princess's right side all the same.

"Let go of me," Anna took another step but failed to free herself from the men's clutches.

"With all due respect, Princess Anna," Martin whispered, keeping his voice low as not to be overheard, "you saw what that man just did. You can't go out there."

"I'm not afraid of you!" Anna called out, taking advantage of the fact that she was barred only from moving by the men.

"Anna!" Kristoff scolded.

"Tell me who you are!"

"Who I am?" the cloaked man seemed to think for a moment, raising his stocky arms into the air in such a way that it made those in the back of the ballroom cower anew in expectation of another fiery feat of magic. "I am the Dark Mage of the Western Isles!" he shouted, flourishing his hands in a shower of weak sparks that lit the face under his hood for only a split second.

The stranger's declaration renewed conversation among the party guests huddled in the back of the ballroom, managing to loosen the tension for a motion with additional confusion.

"The Dark Mage of the Western Isles?" a woman scoffed, her voice hushed and layered with uncertainty as she continued. "Surely not. The Dark Mage is a myth."

"A bedtime story," another agreed, though he was equally as worried about being overheard. "I was told his tales when I was but a lad."

Anna remembered reading stories of the Dark Mage, too. Her parents used to forbid her from reading books that included the evil magician but that had naturally only made them all the more alluring to the curious young princess. At one point, the castle library must have had dozens of tomes with mentions of the Dark Mage, although the supply had long depleted with the King and Queen tossing each new book that the youth had discovered.

The Dark Mage was usually found in older children's stories, invariably pitted against the hero of the day in a struggle of good and evil. Each of the legends that Anna had come across when she was younger had been different, giving the mysterious man power over new elements and terrifying minions, however they all ended with the villain's inevitable defeat and demise.

Anna had always thought of the mage as nothing more than a device to be utilized in fantasies - a symbol of evil so simple and innately frightening to make the perfect adversary for the beloved fairytale heroes - so she, too, was skeptical of the man before her and his odd claim.

The Dark Mage of the Western Isles wasn't real. He couldn't be.

"You're telling me that you're a storybook character?" the princess shouted, encouraged by the continuing supporting although quiet criticism coming from the crowd behind her.

Kristoff gave her shoulder a squeeze - a silent and fittingly unheard plea.

The alleged Dark Mage dropped his arms to his sides. Something under his robe shifted - his posture, perhaps - but it was difficult to make out with only the light of the night's rising stars and crescent moon. "You doubt me?" came his booming call.

Without waiting for an answer, the Dark Mage's right hand began to glow. Flares flew from his sleeve, fizzling off into warm ashes before falling to the stage below.

That alone quieted most of the naysayers, but not Anna.

"Who are you _really_?" she fired back, her insolence causing a few of the more fearful guests to cringe in anticipation of something terrible.

"Anna, I really don't think this guy is messing around," Kristoff said beside her. "Just calm-"

"Putting on a brave face for the others, are you?" the Dark Mage's words crashed through the courtyard and directly into the princess. "You've heard of me before, it seems, and so you should know that I do not tolerate misplaced courage," the flecks of lights began dropping from the man's hand more slowly. "I urge you not to forget my..."

The Dark Mage raised his left hand towards the sky. Like an oversized struck match, a flame erupted from his sleeve, curving upwards and once again hopping into the air before settling on his glove in a dazzling equilibrium of color that made the outstretched arm a beacon in the night.

"Advantage," he finished.

Anna watched the inferno's depths, barely glimpsing something dark within from across the terrace. Her imagination was fueled by the fact that she couldn't discern the oddly colored core. Anna had never been one to be afraid of magic - not as a child reading books of the Dark Mage's exploits nor during the reality of Elsa's winter - but the princess's pulse quickened considerably as she envisioned evil things beneath the flames, poised to attack her at any moment.

"You're not so talkative now," the Dark Mage commented. His lower hand stopped bleeding sparks, now joining its mirror in cradling the ball of fire above his head. His fingers twirled around the mass, nourishing it with motion to ensure continued growth. "I'm glad."

Anna began to shake slightly, her breaths uneven and no longer automatic. She couldn't look away from the inflating flame.

"What do you want?" the princess asked. Her voice was nowhere near as spirited as it had been before, all stubbornness having melted away under the heat of the Dark Mage's newest trick.

"Simple. I want Arendelle to witness the power of magic," the man on the stage howled, his hands and fire continuing to gyrate in tiny circles in the air.

There was a murmur behind her, and Anna again felt the weight of the guests' eyes on her back. Now more than ever, she wished that her sister was around to ease the burden.

"And I intend to provide plenty of exhibits," the Dark Mage chuckled. His fingers stopped dancing and the flame above them dulled slightly in its rigidity, at the very least maintaining a static size and shape now.

With a grunt of effort and another strange, impossible to see shift in posture the man flung the ball to his left. It flew across the courtyard with incredible speed - confirming the phantom's immense strength in the eyes of the observers - before crashing into the western fountain with a deafening snap. The fountain's sky-reaching ice shattered and fizzled under the pressure of the flames as it pierced the abstract shape and proceeded to slam into the terrace brick a few feet away from the frozen pool. Frost exploded above and below the area of impact, clattering to the ground far away from where it had once been, propelled by the incredible force of the Dark Mage's creation. Water dripped from the fountain for the first time in nearly a month.

"Are you _afraid _yet, princess?" the Dark Mage demanded. A few leftover sparks fell from his right hand as he lowered it.

"Elsa," Anna choked, softly enough so that only the three men around her could hear her. "We need Elsa."

"What was that? I didn't hear you."

"We need Elsa," Anna repeated, but she was still only talking to her companions. She looked over to Kristoff. "We need Elsa. We need to-"

A new flame dropped from the Dark Mage's sleeve into his gloved left hand. It flared as he pulled his arm back and readied to throw. "I want Arendelle to feel the true fear of magic," he said, his fingers twirling again. "And I'll make sure that their precious, stubborn princess feels it _first_."

"Close the door!" Anna ordered, jumping to the side and beginning to push at one of the carved wooden slabs hinged to the ballroom's entrance. Kristoff and Martin split, the former helping the princess with her task while the latter set to work on the second huge door.

The mysterious man gave a grunt of exertion and sent the flaming mass hurdling towards the archway.

Isaac's eyes went wide, taking in the full view of the rapidly approaching block of magical energy. He gasped and flinched, putting his hands in front of his tear-soaked cheeks for ineffective protection but transfixed by the threat to his wellbeing.

Anna and Kristoff managed to swing their side of the front door closed to much fanfare from the spectators behind them, but it was quickly apparent that their efforts would not mitigate Isaac's danger. The Dark Mage had noticed their movement just before throwing his flame and adjusted its trajectory accordingly, aiming for the other half of the entrance which was closing much more slowly under only Martin's pressure.

After a few moments, Isaac's window of opportunity was gone altogether. There would have been no way for him to dodge the blast even if he had suddenly come to his senses. His eyes poked through small gaps in his fingers and saw the flames just a few feet away, attacking the air with a ferocity that he himself would soon feel. The guardsman screamed - the first sound that he had made since locking up earlier - and shut his eyes tight.

There were three sounds: a satisfying clunk, a horrific, booming crack, and then a sigh of relief.

Martin collapsed, panting, against the now-closed entryway.

"Martin!" Anna was at his side instantly, crouching down and putting a reassuring hand on the guardsman's shoulder. Behind her, Kristoff leaned against the other half of the door, simultaneously resting and making sure that it would stay closed. "Are you alright?"

Martin wiped some sweat off of his forehead with the back of his hand, but more was quick to replace it. "I'm fine," he said. "Are you alright, Princess Anna?"

"Yeah."

"And Isaac?"

Isaac, a few steps away, opened his eyes again, quite surprised that he could still see. He lowered his arms, similarly shocked to see that they were unharmed, and regarded the closed doors in front of him. He locked eyes with his good friend and gratitude flowed out of his wordlessly. Isaac nodded.

"Good," Martin dabbed at his forehead again but was unable to quell the perspiration. Anna gave him tenuous support as he pushed himself up against the door to a standing position.

"Afraid yet, little princess?" the Dark Mage continued outside. Although Anna couldn't see him through the archway anymore, she felt his presence beyond the sound of his voice alone as the double doors beside her vibrated lightly, pelted by his words.

The princess wasn't sure how to respond, though her silence was a message in and of itself. The crowd in the back of the ballroom started mumbling again, taking Anna's hesitation as a sign that even the most reckless among them had succumb to fear.

"No? Perhaps you'd like another demonstration?" the Dark Mage called. There was tearing noise, barely audible from within the ballroom, as the cloaked man summoned a new fire.

Kristoff and Martin pressed themselves harder against the doors, bracing them for impact. Anna shook her head of uncertainty and joined them, taking her place next to the guardsman on his side of the door this time. Even Isaac stepped forward, putting his hefty weight into the opposite half of the entrance.

"We have to get my sister," Anna croaked, straining to get a solid position against the door.

"Well, yeah, but that door over there is frozen shut," Kristoff panted.

"The fastest alternative route would be through the courtyard, though that is obviously out of the question," Martin recited. He leaned sideways against the door, not letting up any of his pressure but freeing a hand to point towards one of the back corners of the ballroom. A group of five squatted dignitaries stumbled out of the imaginary path of his finger to reveal a modest door behind them. It was the one through which the royal sisters had entered the ballroom through originally and the third and final exit from the hall. "That leads to Queen Elsa's wing. We could all go - it would probably be safer than it is here. After that, one could wrap around to the dungeon through the far hallway. It would take ten minutes, maybe-"

There was a harsh noise and all four of the defenders at the archway redoubled their pressure on the wood in the same moment.

Anna was the first to find it odd that their efforts were unreciprocated.

"Huh?" she mumbled. The doors had not so much as trembled with the sound indicating collision. Beyond that, the crash itself had been comparatively soft, further away and possibly carrying less force than the ones that had come before it.

Another similarly muted crash rang through the door and this time everyone in the ballroom listened closely to get a sense of where it was coming from. If the Dark Mage was no longer besieging the entrance to the hall, where _was_ he directing his flames?

"It's coming from above us," Martin looked up diagonally, lessening his pressure on the wood slightly and consulting his mental map of the castle. "That would be... Queen Elsa's wing."

The guardsman's realization was punctuated by a third noise from overhead. It was different from the other two, not a dull thump but rather something else entirely: the sound of glass shattering as a ball of fire sailed through the latticed window of the queen's quarters.


	7. Chapter 7

The air in the dungeon had grown frigid, initially noticeable only to the prisoner. The source of the drop in temperature - the queen, standing on the other side of the cell door - could not even feel the cold which she had created, immune to its biting touch. She rather sensed it a few moments later, tipped off by the sound of roused wind and Dee's shivering breaths in her ears.

The unceremonious arrival of her powers surprised and frightened Elsa to the point of gasping.

Ever since the coronation incident, the queen had prided herself in the control of her powers. The queen would be the first to admit that she didn't fully understand the clarity bestowed upon her by Anna's sacrifice. Even her own declaration that "love will thaw" was a mystery to her - a wisdom that she knew to be true but struggled to grasp completely ever since it had left her mouth.

All Elsa truly knew was that thawing Arendelle - a task that should have been impossible - had suddenly seemed easy, natural, even, after her vague realization. With that ease had come confidence and, although her thoughts dwelled occasionally on the questions left in the thaw's wake, the queen never imagined that she would ever lose command of her powers again. In her mind, such a prospect was just as impossible as harnessing them had been before. Regardless of her true comprehension, Elsa felt like she was in full control for the first time in years.

The truth, however, was that the month since the coronation had been less than a challenge to Elsa's emotions. Other than her stints in front of the mirror - where, admittedly, she had shown unprecedented restraint over her powers in the face of her own guilt - the queen was living a happier life than she had since she was a small child. Arendelle's recovery from the storm was moving swiftly, Elsa had plenty of time to herself, and, most notably, whenever she did tire of reading or letter-writing, Anna was always there right beside her to share in a multitude of sisterly bonding activities.

Elsa had the life that she had always dreamed of and, in her bliss, her powers were rarely under the pressure of her feelings. She was never confronted by her lack of understanding. She never really had to question what exactly it all had meant. Control had been easy when the ice at her fingertips wasn't imbued with crippling grief. Now, in the dungeon, Elsa found herself grappling with just that.

She knew that the kingdom had been hurt by her storm, but she had thought of it all as repairable damage - things that she could fix with adequate effort.

Nothing permanent.

No one _dead_.

"Queen Elsa?" Dee asked, finally persuaded to speech by the unexpected gust and the small terror that crept up inside of her alongside it.

"I..." Elsa tried to speak but faltered, taken aback by her own struggle to retain control. She looked down at her palms and was barely able to make out the shapes of sparkling teal snowflakes drifting upwards from them. The queen balled her hands into fists, clamping the magic within them with all of her might physically and mentally.

Even then, frost continued to wrap across her knuckles, moving at a glacial pace.

"I'm sorry," Elsa said. Another wind whipped through the hallway and into the cell, causing Dee to shake with chilliness and distress. "I'm so sorry, Mrs. Daleon."

"No, please," Dee pleaded, her voice frantic. "I didn't mean to upset you. I don't blame you for William's death, alright?"

A few frozen droplets appeared in the air above Elsa, each consciously eliminated within a few seconds by the queen. She was able to check her magic in a sense, she noticed, but while she was upset it was difficult to stop her emotions from manifesting entirely. Rather, she would have to take note of her unintentional displays and get rid of them after the fact, forcing them back into whatever plane they came from with a mental effort that Elsa only hoped that she could maintain.

"I won't say that I never did blame you," Dee admitted to another wall of cool air, "but you must trust me when I tell you that I do not anymore."

"You said that his sled flipped in my storm," Elsa hissed. She cared little for the widow's excuses, assuming them made out of respect - or even fear - of her queen. "It doesn't matter if you blame me or not. I _killed_ him."

"It is true that William was riding in the storm-"

"_My _storm."

"Yes, your storm," Dee corrected herself, her breath alone visible in the darkened cell. "But you didn't really kill him. I did."

Elsa was confused. "What do you mean?" she asked, distracted from her self-deprecating thoughts for a moment. It grew slightly warmer in the dungeon, though the temperature was still nowhere near its normal level.

Dee sniffled before she began. "We were running out of supplies, you see," the widow said somberly. "My son was ill, so the burden fell to William."

"That doesn't-"

"Listen," Dee interrupted the queen. She was perhaps the only one to have ever been so audacious as to do so. "We weren't out yet. We still had food and firewood to last us a few more days, at least. But I was afraid. I was worried that we would run out, so I convinced William to make a trip into town. It was me."

Dee had begun crying, however it was not quite as dramatic as it had been before in Isaac's audience. The sobs were quiet but somehow even more powerful than the roars that had preceded them, transforming her naturally chipper voice into a struggling, disgusted thing when it even allowed her to speak over its heaving breaths. Elsa's anger at the other woman's apparent forgiveness was displaced slightly by a sympathetic pity.

"You can't blame yourself," the queen said. Two stray tears rolled down her cheeks, froze in midair, and hit the ground with twin clinks. "None of it would have happened if it were not for me."

Dee paused for a moment, softly huffing a few times. "Once again, that is true," she said, bracing herself for a wind that thankfully never came. "I thought about it like that, too, for a while."

Elsa furrowed her brow in annoyance. "Is there any _other _way to think about it?"

"There's a difference between the mistakes that we made," the widow said, barely able to keep herself together. "You could never have known the effects that your storm had on my family. You still didn't know - not until I told you."

"It doesn't matter," Elsa hung her shoulders. "Just because I didn't know doesn't mean that it wasn't my fault."

"Perhaps," Dee's words glided sorrowfully out into the darkness, "but I am more responsible than you. I knew what I was doing. I knew that if I asked William to go out into your storm he would do it."

Dee shuddered twice, silently.

"He loved me," she continued, the statement falling from her mouth and allowed to fully settle on the dungeon walls before she proceeded. "He would have done anything for me and he gave _everything_ for me."

Elsa remained unconvinced of her supposed innocence, the widow's tale only adding layers to her misery. Emotions seemed to stack up inside of her, making themselves known to the external world with even more disobedient sparks of magic. The queen's foot, pressed hard against the ground in focus and despair, slipped to the side unexpectedly, the floor below it now plated with a thin layer of glassy ice. With a pointed thought from Elsa, the slick frost receded, but she was still aware of its presence dormant within her, lying in wait for its next trigger.

How much control did she _really_ have?

"Maybe you are right. Maybe we are both to blame," Dee finally said. "But I _knew_."

Elsa desperately wanted to console to the widow. She started to open her mouth, but saw a snowflake materialize directly in front of her face before she could speak. The queen took aim for the fleck of ice with both her right hand and her thoughts, slapping it with a palm in frustration before sending it back from whence it came.

The queen couldn't find any words of reassurance for herself. How could she even begin to console anyone else? Elsa closed her mouth just as another small crystal appeared in the air above.

The two women stood in the near-silent shadows on opposite sides of the cell door, each disabled by their grief and, even more so, their guilt. Dee rubbed her nose roughly, Elsa swatted rebellious snowflakes from the air.

* * *

"He's aiming for the windows upstairs," Martin chirped, awestruck.

"Sounds like he's doing more than just aiming," Kristoff added.

The audience behind the men echoed their statements, chattering about what they really meant in hushed, worried voices. There was a sense of instability in the ballroom. Everyone was afraid and everyone knew it. There was only the question of what would definitively set the crowd off - or rather when the inevitable catalyst would come.

"Elsa's wing..." Anna thought aloud. "If one of those fireballs actually got inside, then..."

The princess didn't even want to imagine it. Save for Elsa's room, nearly the whole wing was some sort of combination of carpet, wood, and draperies. The fire would catch fast and spread faster, afforded routes to all of the castle's different floors via the multitude of staircases leading off of the main upstairs hall.

"Is there anyone up there?" Martin demanded, his squeaky voice sounding surprisingly guardsman-like.

"No, I dismissed everyone for the festival," Anna said. "It should be empty."

"Good," Martin nodded.

"Good?" Kristoff asked, still pressing himself against the ballroom's front door just in case. "What exactly is _good_ about this situation?"

"Well, if the wing were to catch fire, anyone upstairs would be in danger."

"If the wing catches fire, _we're_ in danger," Kristoff retorted. "You said yourself that that last door leads to Queen Elsa's wing. The fire's only going to spread, and we're trapped between it, that frozen doorknob, and some psycho outside!"

The ice master's audience shuffled uncomfortably in the back of the hall.

"We're doomed!"

"Is there no other way out?"

"Someone has to do something!"

Anna could sense the dangerous state of the room. Settled panic was rustling afresh with the increasing cries in the back. She knew that the whole room was presently teetering and soon would be completely lost to chaos without guidance. Again, the princess could practically feel the gazes of her frenzied guests settle onto her, waiting to see if she could put forth anything that would stop them before descending further into madness. Duty called and Anna recognized that without her sister present she would have to be the one to answer.

"We still have to go find Elsa," Anna said forcefully, silencing the growing concern of the crowd with her loud declaration.

"We can't," Kristoff protested. "The only way to get to the dungeon would be right through her wing, unless you have any ideas for busting open that other door without getting us frozen. If there's one thing more dangerous than staying here, it's going up there."

Anna looked to her boyfriend, her expression a successfully masked fearful and unyielding.

"I will go," she stated.

"Princess Anna, if I may-"

"Anna, it's too dangerous-"

"Elsa's the only one who can stop the Dark Mage," the princess said with a certainty that everyone else was already feeling. She turned, now, and addressed the whole room, finding that the attendees in the back, indeed, were all staring at her in the time of crisis. "I'll go get her and she'll know exactly what to do. She always does."

"I cannot allow that," Martin said.

"It's the only chance we have."

The feeling in the ballroom changed again with Anna's statement. Martin's proper facade wavered slightly. Kristoff gulped in acknowledgement. Isaac looked like he may just be persuaded to start speaking again. The crowd in the back mumbled even quieter and crouched even lower under the weight of the princess's words.

In the vacuum created, a few of the guests could begin to hear a faint crackling far above them. The queen's wing had caught aflame.

"If you insist upon going," Martin was the one to break the silence, "then I will accompany you."

"Me, too," Kristoff volunteered, although he was unable to sell his empty bravery quite as well as the guardsman.

Isaac mumbled something, as well, but he looked even worse.

"I'll be fine alone," Anna assured them. "You just-"

"Princess Anna, as a member of the Royal Guard," Martin interrupted, tilting his head upwards and displaying his damp, sweating neck, "I cannot allow you to go alone."

Isaac's eyes widened in terror as he watched his friend.

Anna made a small gesture. The group of four near the front of the ballroom took a few steps forward into a tighter circle, granting them a small degree of privacy much to the frustration of the eavesdropping guests.

"What happens if..." Anna's whisper trailed off with a glance over to the archway at her right that said it all. "Someone needs to stay here."

Martin had already decided to accompany the princess. There was little that anyone could say to persuade him otherwise. Like Anna herself, he felt the force of duty pushing him along. For most of his career with the Royal Guard, he had been relegated to mere security positions - posts that he considered the epitome of boredom in the historically peaceful kingdom. Even the day before, Isaac had been picked as a member of the search party over him. It seemed to the guardsman that he wasn't a guardsman at all. He was something not nearly as impressive or respectable in his own eyes - a watchman, perhaps - and he hated it

And so, despite the rapidity of his pulse, Martin wouldn't allow himself to pass up on an opportunity to accompany the princess in a real time of danger. No matter what, he couldn't refuse his one chance to live up to his true title.

He looked pleadingly to Kristoff and then Isaac.

The first nodded. The second would be okay.

"They will stay," Martin finally said to the princess, not bothering to quiet his naturally shrill voice. "You and I will go to the dungeon," he nodded, leaving the rest unspoken.

The group of four exchanged reassuring looks. A few of them were legitimate.

"Are you sure you'll be alright?" Kristoff asked Anna's resolved face, unable to fully return her optimism (or perhaps just determination) in his own expression. He was well aware that Anna was capable - having witnessed many of her most admirable moments first-hand - though he still couldn't help but be worried for her safety. After all, he had always been there for her during the storm the month before, ready to pick up the slack if ever she needed him to. He wasn't sure how comfortable he could allow himself to be when they were apart.

His unease was put to rest by a single brave, genuine, radiant smile from the princess. "We'll be back with Elsa before you know it," she whispered the pledge through upturned lips. "You just focus on keeping those doors closed until we get back."

Both Anna and Kristoff shifted towards each other in the same moment as if to embrace, however the princess quickly countered her own movement, pulling away with a blush and a quick glance over to the crowd of guests that made her intentions clear to the ice master.

"No need for anyone to be worried," she said through the corner of her mouth. "Including you. Before you know it, alright?"

On the other side of the circle, Martin and Isaac were having an even quieter conversation, conveying their thoughts through their eyes in rapid succession.

Are you okay?

Yeah, are you?

Maybe.

Unlike Anna and Kristoff next to them, the guardsmen seemed to feel the gravity of their predicament. Much like the princess, they were profoundly affected by the eyes focused on them from across the hall, those of the foreigners and especially their fellow members of the Royal Guard. Both of the guardsmen were reluctant deep down - although one was significantly better at hiding it than the other - but forced into a position that they were unable to back away from. For better or worse, they were stuck.

Realistically thinking, they weren't able to manage very brave faces, but at least Martin dabbed some more sweat from his forehead with a sleeve and tried his best.

"You guys better get going, then," Kristoff said, now himself starting to hear the far-off sound of old wood beginning to burn. He was the first to step out of the circle, reclaiming his post against one of the archway's doors. Isaac followed him, sulking to the other before leaning on it with all of his discouraged might.

Anna and Martin started towards the non-frozen door in the back of the ballroom, the audience swelling around them in their approach. Even with nothing said, the princess could sense her guests' questions.

Martin quickened his steps, reaching the door and opening it ahead of his charge. Before stepping into the room beyond the door, Anna turned.

"Stay calm. My sister will fix all of this," with her best royal voice, she spoke to the crowd as a whole once more, scanning the sea of somewhat familiar faces. "Just stay here. And, um," the princess descended into a semi-mumble, trying to find the words that Elsa would have used, "stay calm. Again. Please."

Anna, now blushing, whirled around into the stairwell behind her. There was a slight murmur of confusion among the guests in the ballroom, one which the princess was blocked from hearing it once Martin had joined her and closed the door.

The two regarded the spiral staircase together, ears perked for the now clear crackling coming from the floor above. Their eyes widened as they scanned to the top of the steps and saw the abnormal, claw-like glow of flame reach out towards the landing.

The fire was definitely spreading.

* * *

"I'm grateful that you came down here," Dee finally cut through the tension in the dungeon. While it wouldn't be accurate to say that it had been silent since she had last spoken - the sounds of Elsa's semi-controlled ice were constants in the chilly space - it definitely felt as much. "Like I said, I wasn't sure that you would. I couldn't see _why _you would," the widow's voice was still sad, a quiet, damaged tone. "Why did you?"

"For some reason, my sister was hiding what happened to your husband from me," Elsa said, equally hushed, practically forcing the words out. "I wanted to know the truth, so I came."

Dee paused for a moment. "I see," she said, giving the impression that she meant it on some deeper, implacable level. "Did you get what you came for?"

Elsa let out a dry, harsh breath. "Unfortunately, I did."

Again, the only sound for a time was the repetitive popping of snowflakes in and out of existence.

"You're probably wondering why I wanted you to come here," Dee said.

Elsa was caught off-guard under her cover of darkness. The queen had forgotten all about the pretenses in light of all of the still-processing revelations of the evening. She had been summoned - that was what the guardsman had said.

"Yes," Elsa tilted her head downwards, slight reluctance and for some reason embarrassment audible in her answer. "Yes, I'm sorry-"

"Stop apologizing," the other woman's quiet voice briefly flashed with irritability, though the emotion was gone just as quickly as it had emerged. "Please," she continued, recomposing herself with an incredible deftness, "that's what I wanted you to come for. I wanted to ask for _your_ forgiveness."

For a moment, the queen thought it unfair that only she was barred from apology. She dismissed the notion in a hurry, disappointed by her own insensitivity.

"I assure you, there is nothing that I need to be forgiving you for," Elsa steadied her voice as much as possible, the effort trading off with her attempts to control her rebelling powers. A flurry leapt from her palm, eliciting a gasp from the queen before she made it disintegrate into the air with her mind.

Dee let out a humorless, gasping chuckle.

"Have you already forgotten why I'm locked in here in the first place?" she asked, not bothering to wait for an answer before continuing. "I was going to kill you."

Elsa considered it. She was fairly certain that the old, thick woman silhouetted before her would have a hard time as an assassin, but the sheer emotion hidden in her dead voice overpowered questions of realism. In Dee's mind, at least, the widow had been resolved to kill her target, and the queen wasn't quite sure what to make of _that_ reality.

"But I noticed something after they caught me," Dee continued without an audible reaction, her voice more level than Elsa could manage on even a good day and even more melancholy and terrifying because of it. "I wanted to kill you because I wanted revenge. I wanted to make you feel what William felt. I wanted you to be dead like him."

The queen had to refocus herself. She could practically feel the magic's attempts to push out from within her. Snowflakes appeared with heightened frequency above her head and the hands she used to slap at them were covered almost completely in mitts of frost. As hard as she tried, Elsa could barely retain even after-the-fact control over her manifestations in the face of the widow's continuing emotional onslaught.

Dee knew it, too.

"Don't be upset," she tried to soothe the other woman. "Like I said, something changed after those guardsman stopped be upstairs. Before that, I was angry. I was _so _angry with you."

A frigid gust blew through the hallway again, dusting the brick walls with powdery ice.

"In my anger, I never thought - I assumed. I assumed that if I killed you then all of my problems would... I don't know," Dee paused, thinking of how to phrase what she wanted to say. "I assumed they would just go away," she decided.

Elsa recognized something in the other woman's voice - the familiar words, the broken, searching tone. Her powers slowed their unrest as her inner turmoil made way for curiosity.

"But I now realize that it would have done nothing of the sort," Dee continued, now with the queen's undivided attention. "Things are never that simple. Even if I did succeed - if I did kill you - there would be too much _left_. My sadness wouldn't be gone. My responsibility wouldn't be gone. My pain wouldn't be gone. It's hard to explain, but it would all still be there, just like it was before."

"I understand," Elsa said, and she did.

Dee began to sniffle again, a roaring quality returning to her pained voice as it rose. "I don't know how to get rid of the pain, Queen Elsa, but I have realized that it is not through killing you. I'm ashamed of how I assumed," she continued, sobbing loudly, "and I apologize to you now after having thought. I acted rashly and I am prepared to face the consequences - I only pray that you will be able to forgive me before I do."

"I already have," Elsa said quietly, her statement dwarfed by the widow's wails. "I pray that you, too, will-"

"I already have!"

Through the screen of darkness and grating, the queen felt a sudden and strikingly powerful kinship with the other woman. Elsa knew in an instant that the two of them understood each other on a level deeper than she had experienced ever before. She and the widow were the same - bound together in their struggle for the answers that it seemed the rest of the world had already long ago figured out.

They were the same and, viewing the widow's silhouette and hearing her crying words, Elsa was looking in her trusty mirror again, practicing the only speech that was impossible to give.

The stray ice around Elsa had melted. She had regained full control, empowered by her new, overwhelming feelings towards the widow. The queen felt secure in their connection. She felt reinvigorated, supported in just the way that she had so desperately been seeking.

Elsa knelt down and finally picked the forgotten lantern up from the ground. She squinted and eventually determined that the lamp was thankfully undamaged by its rough handling. The queen carried it back to the front of the dungeon, confident and no longer stumbling, and placed it on the guard table for a moment while she went about striking another match. Aided by the returned light, she scanned the desk with new purpose but was unable to find what she was looking for.

"The guard must have taken the keys to your cell upstairs," the queen commented. She carried the relit lamp back down the hallway towards the cell.

"You're going to release me?" Dee choked out between sobs.

"Of course, Mrs. Daleon."

"Why? Queen Elsa, I deserve-"

"I want to find out how to make my problems go away, too," the queen interrupted, divulging the truth shyly, carefully, hopefully.

"Your problems?" Dee finally quieted down, again falling back onto her more stable tone of grief.

"We're going to help each other," Elsa said. She nodded her head, placing the lantern down just outside of the cell door. It wasn't much, but she hoped that it would provide her new companion with some comfort. "We're both going to figure out our problems. We'll do it together."

"We will?"

"I promise."

Dee sniffled weakly a final time.

"I'm going to go and find the keys. I'll be back as fast as I can," Elsa said.

The widow seemed to hesitate for a moment, quietly considering all that had been said.

"Yes, Queen Elsa," she finally agreed.

That was all of the consent that Elsa needed to rush out of the dungeon and back into the considerably brighter basement hallways, setting a hurried course for a return to the ballroom.

* * *

Anna was the first to start hopping up the stairs, taking each step deliberately. Even now, no longer in view of her guests, she walked with a purpose, the rising temperature and sounds of fire only spurring her on as she made the ascent.

Martin moved cautiously behind the princess, clutching the slowly melting, ice-laced railings to steady himself and posturing to protect her at the first sign of danger. He was propelled forward by his duty and, thus, its object's brisk pace.

The two of them eventually reached the top of the stairs, emptying out into the landing that marked the entrance to Queen Elsa's wing.

"Oh," Anna gasped, taking in the view of the hallway before her.

The crackling of flames was deafening by then, however not even the volume of the sound couldn't do justice to the sight of the destruction. Fire danced across the floor's entire main hallway, leaping from rippling walls to tattered drapes across the ceiling. The flames seemed to be most heavily concentrated around the queen's quarters in the center of the western wall, where the door had been entirely consumed - a sizzling, nearly opaque portal of steam and smoke that obscured whatever was left of the formerly ice-covered room behind it. There was room to walk, but only barely. Anna spied what looked like a crisscrossing, amorphous path of more resistant wood flooring under decimated carpeting - places where Elsa's decorative ice that had once adorned fixtures on the walls had melted and settled the blaze slightly - but it was ever-changing and unreliable.

"We need to move quickly, it's still spreading," Martin yelped above the inferno's endless noise. "Come on!"

The guardsman took the lead, taking a step forward to meet the racing flames a few feet away from the top of the staircase. He swung one leg and then the other over the initial wall, singing his pant leg slightly before he settled on a slightly damp wooden panel. Martin shuffled forward and then turned in a hurry to watch the princess follow his movements and jump over the wave of fire that fed on the carpets as it swept towards the staircase.

Having cleared the first obstacle, the guardsman shouted for his charge to, "stay close," and then was facing the expansive, already burning stretch of hallway again. He tried quickly to chart the easiest - and safest - path through the blaze, however such an attempt was futile. Any time that he saw a clear lane of wood it was engulfed again in fire, shifting the potential walkway to the side or causing it to disappear completely.

"Martin!" Anna warned, holding her dress in but unable to ignore the flames closing in around their drying platform of temporary safety.

Realizing by the princess's cries that he had not the luxury of planning time, Martin crouched and hopped to a small island presently free of flames to their left. Knowing that the new respite was far too small for two people, his eyes darted around in search of another nearby spot that the fire had not yet overtaken, finding only one: a clear plank just in front of the hub that was Elsa's room's door, a considerable distance ahead.

"Hang on!" the guardsman squeaked.

"Hurry!" Anna said. It would be inaccurate to say that she was losing confidence, however, deep down, the princess for a moment questioned her own recklessness as she stomped on a flame that had sprouted under her. She attempted to pull her dress up even more with limited effectiveness, trying to keep its gold from becoming the orange shade of the inferno that surrounded her.

The guardsman took a single step backward into the fire, bending into a crouch, but he was off almost before he could even feel the flames, converting his improvised start into a high vault that successfully landed him onto his target on the far side of the queen's quarters' entrance. Martin came down with a thud, stumbling slightly and causing a flurry of sparks to leap up around him, but was able to quickly regain his balance and begin plotting his next move. He was perspiring faster than even the extreme heat could evaporate and wiped his forehead with an ashy sleeve as he turned in a half-circle and awaited the shifting of the flames off of a suitably close area.

Anna saw her opportunity and was quick to take it, hopping away just as her former perch was smothered by the spreading fire. Her new position was only slightly safer, and she doubted her ability to even make the next jump considering the restrictiveness of her dress. She scanned the room frantically like her alleged escort. The fire pulled away from a plank a few steps to her right and she reacted instantly, dodging through the flames to reach it. The princess and Martin now stood at equal distances from the entrance to Elsa's room on opposite sides of the doorframe.

"There's nothing!" Anna shouted, searching the ground desperately for any next potential move. She heard a great shattering beyond the smoky, misty, open door to the queen's quarters - a piece of ice that had fallen from the ceiling and quickly sputtered off into steam.

"I-"

"That's it!" Anna realized. She looked over to the doorway a few feet away, assessing it. The room past it was mostly obscured by the moisture and blackness flowing out into the hallway, however she could see not even the vague glow of flames beyond the doorway itself. "Come on!" she looked over to Martin, finding the guardsman now watching her with a worried curiosity.

"Princess Anna, you can't be serious," he murmured in his typical high pitch, but it was too late.

Fire crept upward and finally snapped onto the delicate skirt of Anna's dress and she was out of time for her companion to talk her out of it. She glanced again to the veiled portal and, without delay, made a jump for it, piercing through the cloud of smoke and steam and into her sister's room.

The risen moisture shielding the door simultaneously scaled her exposed skin and put out the young flames across her dress's hem as she glided through it. She shrieked in surprise and slight pain twice, once upon first feeling the heat of the steam and then again when she landed on the slick, slushy surface of ice beneath it. A sudden coolness washed over her recently irritated face, soothing its burns.

Looking around, Anna quickly realized what had happened. On the far wall, she could see the shattered window where the Dark Mage's fireball had entered. She assumed that it must have crossed the entire length of the room in the air before hitting the ground just outside of the door and starting the fire, leaving most of the icy quarters in between untouched. Only the things nearest to the entrance had begun to melt under the heat of the raging external flames. Looking to her sides, Anna noticed wooden foundation revealed by disappeared icy walls and ceilings and a drooping bookcase, its contents soaked and ruined.

"Princess Anna!" she could hear Martin's muffled voice from outside. The princess rose quickly from the ground and stepped away from the entrance into the still pristine portion of the room.

"Come on!" she shouted back, cupping both hands around her mouth.

A few seconds later, the guardsman hurdled through the steamy entrance, his knees soon slamming into the nearby floor's melting slush with a minute splash. He grunted before standing up and stumbling over to the princess while surveying the room, his sweat now accompanied with the gray tones of cinder.

"What now?" he asked.

Both of them looked around the room. The chamber had no other doors, and, although the coolness of its back half gave nearly no indication of the continuing disaster in the hallway, the aggressive popping of flames still penetrated into the icy sanctuary. They both recognized that the only way out would be back through the ever-magnifying inferno and tried to think fast to formulate a plan before fire consumed the entire wing around them or, worse yet, spread to other parts of the castle.

Anna searched with her eyes. Elsa's room for the most part was the same as it had always been - save for the pile of broken glass that had appeared on the floor near the window and the melting towards the front - and that was to say that there was little potential for usefulness in its array of diplomatic papers, pen, and little else.

Martin walked over to the melting bookcase on the wall closest to the door, sliding a bit on warming water and ice as he approached. He examined the piece of furniture, which still stood but was slowly transforming into something less than solid. Its structure was sound for the moment, however the guardsman could see that its soggy tenants had begun to slip on watery ledges. In fact, some of the volumes had already made their way to the ground below, where they settled in a large puddle of what had once been their shelves.

"We can use this," he declared, regarding the fresh pool of water atop a thin layer of ice. Martin looked to the princess, who now also took in the bookcase with newfound interest. "We can push it out into the hallway. It will melt pretty quickly, I'm sure, but maybe it could put out enough of the fire for us to get to the other side. If we can just get past the flames, we can probably outrun the spread all the way down to the dungeon."

Anna nodded, grinning, impressed and quite pleased by her companion's ingenuity. "Let's do it," the princess said.

Martin went right to work. He tossed the remainder of the bookcase's contents into a mildly neat stack on the ground next to it before rounding its side and beginning his struggle to push the still-hefty frame towards the door.

"Here, I'll help," Anna offered. The guardsman was disinclined to let her, but it was quickly apparent that he wouldn't be able to accomplish the task alone. He grunted in vague affirmation.

Together, they managed to nudge the bookcase out of its resting position against the wall, setting it on a slippery course for the doorway. Moving it got much easier as it gained momentum and more water started to melt from the sheet of ice that was the floor. Finally, the emptied, melting bookcase arrived just outside of the steam-covered frame at the head of the room.

"Okay," Martin said, squeaky, somewhat proud, and politely authoritative. "We don't have much time to pull this off. Stay right behind me."

"What if it melts before we get out of the fire?" Anna asked, unable to hold in the dangerous thought.

Martin didn't have the answer nor the time to come up with it. He still held the side of the bookcase in one hand and felt it melting even faster under the increased heat. "We'll have to make sure it doesn't," he said meekly, uselessly clearing his throat. "Stay close."

The guardsman could now slide the bookcase forward by himself - on account of its self-lubrication - and quickly did so, within moments causing an intense sizzling as the mass of ice plowed through the queen's quarters' smoky exit and met with the hallway's flames. The two forces dueled with a primal severity, shaking Martin to the rhythm of their hard-fought battle.

"It's working," Anna commented, just a step behind. The water expelled from the bookcase by the fire instantly betrayed its maker, clearing a rather wide path in the guardsman's wake and leaving the planks below so wet that the flames wouldn't return to them for quite some time.

"Have to keep moving," Martin said, grunting a high-pitched grunt of effort as he shuffled the quivering bookcase along. Upset, albeit cool water jumped at him from the disappearing ice, spattering his face and clothes with even more moisture. He dared not look ahead as they proceeded, but was unable to resist picturing the queen's wing in his mind, rapidly charting a theoretical path forward.

Elsa's room was only about a fourth of the way down the main hallway. After clearing that, they would have to maneuver a corner and make it into a secondary corridor - to which the fires had doubtlessly spread by then - and then take one of the small servant staircases three levels. That would finally get them to the floor that the dungeon was on and, more importantly, the inferno was hopefully not.

Eying the rapidly melting bookcase in front of him, the guardsman prayed silently that the door to the tiny, oft-forgotten stairway would be closed. That would at least give them a fighting chance.

If it was open, and the fire had already begun feasting on the steps' weathered wood...

Martin didn't even want to think what such a possibility could mean for his present mission. He couldn't bear to think of what it would mean for the castle at large. If the bottom floor caught fire, too, then the whole structure could very well be compromised. So he prayed and he pushed forward even harder.

By the time that they had almost reached the end of the main hallway, two of the sizzling bookcase's shelves had been filed away by the heat below. The piece of furniture was stubby now, half of its original size and only seeming to expire more swiftly the more it shrank. Martin was panting, too.

"Do you want me to take over?"

"No, Princess Anna," Martin gasped for breath, his exertion magnified by the surrounding heat and his own dreadful thoughts. He made a final shove, putting the icy block just in from of the exit onto the intended side hallway, letting it melt a bit to extinguish nearby flames before stepping carefully around it to get at an appropriate angle to continue. Still, he refused to look ahead, fearful of what he may see. His eyes locked on where the ice fought fire below and he tried to focus.

Anna peeked around the guardsman and into the side passage once more. It was already completely covered by the Dark Mage's magic. The small doorway in the corner that they were heading towards was gaping, its door left wide open by a careless servant hours earlier in a rush to enjoy the festival's proceedings. A weak glow came from within the cubby of a stairwell, but the princess couldn't quite make out its source. She placed her hands on Martin's shoulders, at the same time steadying the man and offering again to take his place in the pushing of the diminished piece of furniture.

"Are you sure?" Anna's distraught, urging proposal gave Martin a pretty good idea of the situation regardless of his willful oblivion.

The guardsman put all of his energy towards the bookshelf just as a large crack burst through the hallway behind him - a fallen, charred ceiling board that was rapidly gobbled by the flames below. He labored on, now guiding the last remaining shelf blindly ahead towards where he remembered the stairs to be.

The last of the ice boiled away just as they reached their destination.

"No, no, no," Martin chirped, watching the remains of the bookcase boil into a steaming puddle before looking up to see his fears realized. He spied down the several stories worth of steps and watched fire pour downwards - not complete in its spreading to the bottom floor but well on its way. He glanced backwards, then, for a terrible moment, and caught sight of the recently cleared path from the queen's room as it rapidly transformed back into its former, fiery state.

They were trapped.

"What now?" Anna asked, panicked and looking to the guardsman.

"I..." Martin only began, his throat catching with emotion. His first real assignment - however unofficial - and he had failed. He had not only let the princess endanger herself but also had been unable to protect her when the danger did become real. A sense of shame overcame him and his eyes watered for the first time that perilous night.

Even then, it wasn't as if he would ever have an audience to be ashamed in front of. In that moment, Martin was sure that he had killed the princess and himself.

"Martin!" Anna hissed frantically, her eyes darting around the side hallway looking for something - anything.

Her search returned with only one thing: fire, fire everywhere.

But her call did manage to snap Martin out of his pitiful trance. Through smoke and tear-veiled eyes, he found himself staring again down the servants' staircase. The guardsman saw what looked like an unaffected patch of steps at the end of the diagonal tunnel. He was reminded that the fire had not yet finished their race downwards.

"If we can just get past the flames, we can probably outrun the spread," he mouthed.

Martin whirled around, in a single motion clutching Anna tight and pushing his shoulders out backwards, and the guardsman did his best to shield the princess with his body as he sent them tumbling down the burning stairs.

* * *

**A/N: I'm truly sorry that this chapter took so long to put out. It's a pretty lengthy, important one and even beyond that I haven't had quite as much time to dedicate to writing lately as I did before. My schedule should be clearing up shortly, though, so hopefully you all can expect updates out much more frequently starting in a couple of weeks here. I really appreciate everyone's continuing readership through the short break. I'd love to hear what you all thought of the chapter so please do leave a review or PM me if you feel like it! Thanks so much for reading!**


	8. Chapter 8

Following Princess Anna's hurried words, unrest had returned to the ballroom tenfold. The faint buzzing of the crowd of dignitaries quickly became loud, frenzied vocalizations of fear. A few of the more brave - or perhaps more restless - guests began to mill about the hall in search of an alternative exit that didn't exist, a strategy that only exacerbated the shared sense of confusion. One of them even tried to open the frozen door to the side, giving the knob a shaky pull before pulling his hand back in stinging pain. Above the hall, the crackling of the flames tearing through the queen's wing lent a fittingly uneven rhythm to it all.

"Hey, hold on a minute," Kristoff attempted from his post at the archway, but his call was lost in the swirl of noise and movement.

The ice master exchanged a look with the guardsman beside him. Isaac looked every bit as helpless as they both felt. The volume of the confusion in the hall was only growing louder and it was nearly certain that none of the noble guests would care for their alleged protectors' opinions. They were powerless to stop the chaos.

Across the room, towards the back of the crowd still clustered along the far wall, a corpulent man eyed the two men warily. He had seen Kristoff's mouth move in vain and presently wondered if the other men would do anything more to put an end to the pervading madness. He shook his head dismissively when they redoubled their pressures on their respective doors, signaling that they wouldn't even try.

The diplomat was disappointed. He had expected more from guards endorsed by the princess herself.

The foreign agent started towards the front of the ballroom, maneuvering his unusual stockiness through the panic with minimal effort, carrying himself with self-assured steadiness around every obstacle. As he neared the center of the hall, a particularly worry-stricken guest lurched in his direction. He saw her movement before it was even made, correcting his own course with a quick sidestep before the potential collision without so much as slowing his pace. A few of his fellow dignitaries gazed at the man admiringly for a moment as he passed, temporarily awoken from their panicked state by his familiar, fine, imposing stature. A fleeting sort of calmness seemed to follow him through the crowd, almost as if his exaggerated propriety was not only his own but something passed to those around him through some mysterious force.

After a while, the man definitively broke away from his peers and, still holding his posture high, closed in on Kristoff and Martin at the entrance.

"Open the doors," he gave the order with the almost casual tone suitable for one who had given many before. His head was raised at an angle suggesting superiority, his eyes narrowed and set perfectly to look down upon his company.

"Excuse me?" Kristoff asked, turning around while still leaning back against the entrance securely.

"Open the doors," the diplomat repeated with proper smoothness. A few of the closer guests to him became aware of his predicament and now started a wave of hushes that coursed through the splintered crowd. The fat man counted the seconds it took for relative, interested silence to return to the hall and then added, "now, if you would," to his nonchalant demand.

"You want us to open _these _doors?" Kristoff asked incredulously. "Are you insane?"

"Yes, I do," the man stated with more than a hint of condescension, "and no, I am not."

"Then you realize that the Dark Mage is still out there," Kristoff said.

The dignitary nodded with a slight eye roll, clearly annoyed.

"Then why would you even suggest that we-"

Suddenly, laughter fell out of the agent's mouth, sounding like little more than a calculated social act. He glanced over his shoulder, ascertaining that everyone was paying good attention.

"There's nothing to fear from that fool outside," the man said finally, his apparent merriment fading. "Surely you've noticed by now. He's a phony, of course - a fake!"

The hall - save for the speaker - inhaled suddenly. No one dared to follow the assertion with any words of their own, however. Even Kristoff had been silenced and now awaited further explanation from the other man with a furrowed brow.

"You're joking," the diplomat spoke with a flat, arrogant, mocking surprise to the reaction. "I thought everyone would have picked up on it by now."

"Tell us what you mean," Kristoff mustered up the courage to say, the effort alone enough to cause his face to flush in intimidation.

"Notice anything?" his opposition answered with a question of his own, half-heartedly cupping his hand to his ear, encouraging his audience to listen carefully. By then, the only sound in the hall was the light clicks of the inferno above. After a few seconds, the fat man continued. "This Dark Mage has been rather quiet, hasn't he?"

The crowd murmured in consideration. They had heard not taunt nor proof of magic from the attacker since he had succeeded in setting the queen's wing ablaze.

"That doesn't matter. He could still be out there, you know," Kristoff said, hesistantly voicing his concerns.

"Yes, I would assume so," the agent's demeanor went undisturbed. "I'm not suggesting that his silence in an indication of his departure. No, I'm fairly certain that it's merely an indication that he's run out of magic," he continued matter-of-factly. "If you could even call his parlor tricks magic, in any case."

The man spoke on an entirely different level than those surrounding him and looked rather pleased by it. The crowd and their reluctant advocate in Kristoff were stunned by his statements, so he proudly proceeded.

"If I had to guess, I would say the fellow had quite a bit of firewood tucked under that cloak of his - that's why he wouldn't move from that stage. He probably has a striking device of some sort, too. I suspect he has run out of wood, though I suppose he could be short on matches as well. Either way, he is no danger to us now."

The diplomat's words still went unmet.

"You all must have seen how his so-called magic always seemed to drop from his sleeves," the agent looked over his broad shoulder once again, though he was not truly expecting to find anything. He opened his mouth to another slight chuckle. "You all _must_ have been looking for his trick the moment he claimed to be a villain from a children's book."

The ballroom remained quiet as, all at once, those present rewound their memories. The heavy man before them certainly had a point. It was true that the alleged Dark Mage's flames _had_ always been summoned weakly from somewhere under the folds of his costume, and the figure _had_ been unyieldingly rigid in his positioning at the center of the courtyard.

"Who are you?" Kristoff was once more the only one who dared to speak following the mass realization. Perhaps it was because he was one of the few who did not know the answer to his very question. The ice master regarded the diplomat, a weathered gentleman, with an impressed squint as he waited for an answer. The other man's thickness seemed to exaggerate his age even further than his wrinkles and thinning, gray hair, yet he stood with the majestic regality of a young and well-trained prince. His bearded chin had not left its upturned position for the length of the encounter, clearly denoting that he was a man who always thought that he was in control of a situation. Often, he was correct.

The entire crowd behind him was entranced by his very manner and hung on his every word when he graced them with his response (despite most of them having already made his acquaintance at some time or another).

"I am Ambassador Malhaas Balan of Geralde," the diplomat's head tilted downwards for a fraction of a second before returning to its original position. "Very nice to meet you," he said disingenuously. "Now, if you would," Balan gestured towards the door.

"How can we know for sure that it's safe? How do we know that your theory is right?" Kristoff asked. He remembered Anna's orders - he was supposed to keep the doors _closed_.

Unfortunately, the ice master was quite outmatched.

"_Theory_?" Balan mocked with a biting coolness that suggested a great, sarcastic offense. "I rarely hear my observations called theories. Open the doors. I want to have a chat with this Dark Mage. I believe he has ruined a rather important evening for all of us."

There was a clamor of agreement throughout the ballroom and any semblance of control that Kristoff had retained to that point was gone completely. The ice master could only step aside as a few of the impassioned guests pushed past him and Isaac and opened the double doors themselves, connecting the hall to the courtyard once more.

* * *

After leaving the dungeon and starting off in the direction of the ballroom, Elsa was quite surprised when she began hearing the mysterious crackling. The sounds were anomalies, as Elsa was sure that Anna had told her that the caretakers would be dismissed for the evening on account of the festivities. By all means, the lowest floor of the castle should have been empty, and yet the light whispers continued and grew even louder as the queen traversed the bright, painting-laden hallways. She was unable to place the noises in their faintness, but she had the feeling that unwanted company joined her, floating above and around the rooms in her twisted route to the main staircase.

When she heard several far-off bangs and accompanying shouts, the intrusions into the silent basement suddenly became more alarming than merely perplexing. Elsa stopped immediately, instinctively turning around completely to face the shrieks.

"Anna," she breathed out, recognizing one of the screams.

It had unmistakably been the princess's voice. Questions raced through the queen's mind, though they were overridden by her compulsion to take action.

"Anna!" she called, dashing backwards through the path she had just taken from the dungeon. The louder noises had come from somewhere beyond the prison's colossal entrance and, as Elsa flew past it, she could begin to hear the continuing, quieter clicks with increasing clarity, positively identifying them as the sounds of excited flames. "Anna!" she yelled again, her sister's previous screech replaying itself in her mind and amplifying her worry.

The queen's fears were confirmed when the princess did reply to the final shout with frantic rapidity.

"Elsa, help!" Anna cried from the foot of the staircase that emptied into one of the floor's many side halls.

Her sister took note of her general location and cut through a display room to her left, still relatively far away.

The princess twisted out of Martin's weakened grip. The guardsman had succeeded in shielding her from the flames and the impact of their fall only by taking the full burden upon himself. Anna stood and looked down upon the man, who now lay unconscious just below the final step. His forehead was bruised severely - the injury likely to have knocked him out - and the rest of his body had sustained many burns in tumbling through the fire. His observer's eyes grew wet with responsibility as she assessed the damage. In her peripheral vision, she could see the inferno continuing its descent down the steps, closing in on their present position unhindered by any door at the staircase's foot.

"Where are you?" Elsa called. She hurried through yet another hallway and, despite her uncertainty, turned the corner at the end and ran even faster down the next.

"We're at the servant staircase over here!" Anna volleyed back over the roar of the flames. "Come quick!" she bent down and took Martin's shoulders in her hands, struggling only slightly because of her reasonable soreness as she worked at dragging the guardsman away from the steps.

She was capable of pulling him, but such a task would be anything but speedy. It only took a few barely-effective tugs and a thoughtful glance upwards at the spreading fire for the princess to know that it would be impossible for them both to outpace the flames.

Still, Anna kept at it, grunting with determination as she yanked at the man's shoulders. She refused to think for a moment of leaving Martin behind.

The fire jumped out of the enclosed staircase and into the open hallway that was its landing. It sputtered as it rolled along the carpet and tore across the green wallpaper. The room transformed around the princess and guardsman, becoming a hellish portal at a rate just slow enough to taunt them and just fast enough to follow through. Flames started to lap at Martin's slow-moving boots and Anna squealed, her fingers now sweaty with the renewed heat losing their grips on the man.

Elsa turned the corner into the hallway. Both of her hands swung out in natural unison and with them came flurries of white energy that curved gracefully around her sister and the guardsman. Once they had been passed by the magic, Elsa flicked her wrists upward, exploding the cool bursts of power into countless crystals that were static in the air for just a moment before distributing themselves evenly onto every surface in the far half of the hall. The diamonds of energy glided into the flames with an urgent perfection, extinguishing the whole of the blaze and revealing what remained of the room underneath with a simultaneous, climactic hiss of steam.

The queen made an additional gesture with her right hand, willing a wall of sturdy ice to rise impossibly out of the staircase's bottom step. The block started to melt immediately, but it successfully stopped the inferno's spread for the time being.

"Are you alright?" Elsa finally asked, dashing over to her sister and pulling the young princess into a hug from her side. For a few precious seconds, they shared the embrace, however the memory of the evening's events returned to the queen all too soon. Her arms dropped from around Anna and, although she felt restricted by the circumstances in expressing her emotions fully, a bitterness passed between them as if something profound and biting had indeed been said.

Her sister recoiled from the feeling with a small shudder. "Elsa, I'm-"

"What happened?" the queen demanded in harsh interruption. There was no time for any of that. She looked forward through her rapidly shrinking frozen blockade to the flames beyond, astounded by their ferocity. Elsa could not tell for sure, but it looked as if the blaze reached all the way up to her wing. Apparently, the princess did not answer quickly enough, because her sister repeated herself coldly. "What happened, Anna?"

Anna explained as best and as quickly as she could. She spoke of the Dark Mage's arrival following Elsa's untimely departure, of his threats to the performer, and of his grand feats of magic. She recounted the shattering of the fountain and the attempts on the ballroom and finally the origins of the inferno that now ravaged the queen's wing. The princess ended with her journey alongside Martin through the flames to retrieve her sister.

"We had nowhere else to go," she explained. "He wrapped himself around me as we rolled down the stairs. I..." Anna trailed off, gazing at the incapacitated guardsman with guilty pity.

Elsa didn't follow her sister's gaze, instead alternating her own wide-eyed focus between Anna, Martin, and the ever-melting icy block circuitously. The story that had been spun was so ridiculous that it was believable - too far-fetched to even consider as a lie - not to mention the surrounding evidence.

After hearing the significance of Anna's tale, the queen moved with even more haste.

First, she knelt at Martin's side, inspecting his injuries with light, quick hands. "He's definitely still breathing," she commented. The guardsman reflexively winced a few times as the queen tried to soothe some of his worse - though still relatively mild - burns with thin veils of frost. "I think he will be okay," Elsa decided and rose. The queen didn't look at her sister as she moved towards the stairs and raised her hand in preparation to dismiss what was left of her conjured wall. "You should stay with him to make sure," she stated simply.

"Wait, what?" Anna asked, stepping up now from her own assumed position beside the man. "Elsa, no. You're not going up there alone. I'm coming-"

"Anna!" Elsa whispered with a power that was stronger than a raised voice. She still kept her back to her sister. It seemed like she was going to say more in the caustic tone, but she sighed instead, her voice normalizing as she dropped her hand again to her side. "We don't have_ time_ for this. Arendelle needs me. We don't know what's going on up there, okay?"

"I don't understand. I-"

"No, you never do, do you?" the queen interrupted, her tone returning to a brutality that she was instantly ashamed of. A gust of chilled wind emanated from her body, sweeping through the hallway and buffeting the flames on the steps before her.

Anna gasped in shock, though even she was uncertain of which of the surprises it was in response to.

Elsa's words seemed to hover in the cold air, their meanings palpable and suffocating.

Many things went unsaid as the weakened but relentless flames whittled away at the last of their frozen obstruction.

"Stay with Martin," Elsa ordered quietly over her shoulder. "I will come and get both of you when it is safe."

Without another word, the queen left her sister, coating the tilted corridor before her with ice to clear the way as she darted up its damp, charred steps. Once she made it halfway up, she turned and made a flourishing gesture with one hand. A block of ice resealed the staircase at the bottom and this time there were no flames to melt her barrier.

* * *

The double doors of the ballroom opened to a courtyard much the same as it had been before. Only the crescent moon above and the twinkling glows from the castle's windows overlooking the terrace - none the least of which came from the queen's burning wing - provided sparse light to the cleared terrace. As Balan had expected, the Dark Mage still stood upon his stage, barely visible. On the far side of the courtyard, where it joined with the bridge, a few curious townspeople still stood (now having lit torches with limited benefit), ready to flee further at any moment.

The Dark Mage paid them no mind. In fact, he was looking everywhere except at the bridge, rotating slowly on his roost with his head held up in concentration. To the spectators, he seemed to be watching for something in the brightness of the windows above.

The Dark Mage's hooded face was turned to his work in the queen's wing for a particularly long interval before his vigilance was interrupted and he noticed the returned light in the archway. His head snapped downwards in the direction of the ballroom.

"Oh?" he bellowed, his voice winding up to its full strength and echo through the word. "Queen Elsa?" he asked, at first unable to discern the figure that emerged from the open doors.

Even through the sudden and temporarily blinding brightness, however, it was quickly apparent that the trespasser onto the courtyard was not the predicted queen. The formidable shape of Balan became evident as the diplomat made his approach.

The Dark Mage noted the other man's impressive size - comparable to his own beneath the cloak albeit not nearly as healthily obtained. He also was struck by his unexpected guest's refined manner. For the first time in the evening, the mage felt humbled, shaken in advance by the well-dressed dignitary's ambivalence.

"Sorry to disappoint," Balan answered coolly. He descended the few steps just outside of the ballroom, steady and casual. If any worries intruded upon his mind, the Dark Mage certainly was not one of them. His voice was arrogant and just as loud as the other man's as if the two were engaged in some sort of a battle for attention. "I am Ambassador Malhaas Balan of Geralde," the diplomat declared proudly for all to hear.

The Dark Mage shifted uncomfortably but invisibly upon the darkened stage. He recognized the challenger before him as a threat in every way and prepared for his next words with warm dread.

"I've introduced myself," Balan continued, sensing his already growing dominance, "perhaps you would care to do the same?"

"Have you just arrived?" the mage asked from above, struggling to maintain his composure. While his worsening quivering was hidden by his cloak and the darkness, his voice had no such luxury.

Balan cracked a smirk at the response. "I have not," he volleyed back. "No, I have been here the whole time."

The mage paused for a moment in assumed confusion. "Then you would know that I am the Dark Mage of the Western Isles," the cloaked man called out, but he was unsure.

"I think we_ all_ know that that is not the case."

The mage hesitated again, this time for a far longer time. That was all it took for Balan's gift for observation to internally declare his own victory in the struggle.

The massive diplomat paused on a brick halfway between the ballroom and the stage - a place where his adversary could now see the smile across his face, barely still illuminated by the light pouring from the archway behind him.

The Dark Mage physically reacted to the sight, pulling his shoulders back and finally converting his terror into a recomposed response. "You doubt my identity?" he asked, his voice dubiously stable.

"Doubt is a weak word," Balan's smile grew wider. He resumed his path toward the wooden structure. In the ballroom and at the bridge his audiences breathed in rhythm with his confident, brisk pace, wanting very much to believe in his accusations but nervously awaiting their disproval.

Contrary to their expectations, the townspeople saw no grand gesture of magic from the attacker above. Instead, the Dark Mage spoke with an increasingly cracked facade of mystique.

"Stop!" he ordered thunderously, some weakness from his throat bleeding through shakily.

"And if I don't?" Balan teased.

"I'll... I'll..."

"You will hurl one of your fires at me, will you?" Balan challenged with a trace of laughter, but despite his words he did not slow down. "Believe me, I have no power to stop _magic_. Go ahead - please. Throw one right at me."

The Dark Mage did nothing of the sort.

"Oh, that's right, you won't," the diplomat proceeded. He was only a few feet away from the foot of the stage, veering to the left and beginning to make his way to the ladder on the opposite side. "You haven't done anything for a while, now. You won't do anything. You _can't_ do anything. You've run out of wood under that cloak of yours, haven't you?"

The mage and his robe shook furiously in the windless night. Beneath his hood, the man's eyes darted around the lights of the courtyard, now seeking any escape that they could find and coming up hopelessly short.

"I do believe that I have you figured out, _Dark Mage_," Balan spat. "Your tricks were spectacular, to be sure, but they were just that - tricks. You may have a bit more flair, but you are no more magical than that hired performer up there with you!"

The Dark Mage looked down at the pile of an old man beside him on the stage, suddenly reminded of the trembling hostage's existence.

"You should have made sure that I wasn't attending before you decided to pull your little stunt," Balan jeered, full of pride. He was congratulating himself. "As foreign minister, seeing through flourishes of trickery is one of my stronger suits. Surely you did not think that you could take _me_ in with your little ruse. It was all too easy to tell-"

"I'll kill him!" the Dark Mage's shout pierced right through the other man's ego. His voice was different, now - underscored by the scratchy, deep roar of desperation akin to that of a cornered animal. The mage bent stiffly, just enough to claw at one of the old magician's shoulders and pull him back up into a forced stand at the edge of the stage. "Stop!" he demanded.

Balan paused at the foot of the structure's side ladder, his hands already gripped around the first of its wooden rungs.

"Step back," the Dark Mage ordered. When Balan refused to move immediately, the performer was pushed further towards the perimeter of the platform with a sobbing yelp.

"Fine, fine," the diplomat conceded with considerable irritation. It would not do for an Arendellien man to die on his account. That would hamper negotiations significantly.

Balan released his hold on the ladder and took four deliberate paces back, all the while gazing up at the dangling man above him.

"Further!" the Dark Mage roared, finally back in control.

* * *

Frost and fire waged war on the queen's wing's walls, ceilings, and floors, the chaotic elements hissing in each other's company as they dissipated from the charred foundations underneath.

A Elsa was at the center of the battles, barely thinking as she sent forth her armies of magic. Ice burst from her hands in hurried, cathartic release and it was the once pent-up emotions of the evening, set willfully free at last, that painted and fizzled away in the halls.

Elsa turned from the short corridor housing the servants' staircase and onto the wing's main hallway. She instantly stopped at the new edge of the inferno, looking on in disgusted amazement. Behind her, where the fire had been relatively newly spread, the flames had always been curling off of carpets and wooden blanks, but it seemed to her that the core of the blaze was different, independent now of the rules of what used to lay underneath. The central conflagration had turned into a consistent, all-encompassing swirl; the main hallway beneath into but a skeleton of what it had once been.

Starting from above the door to her room - still blocked from view by a particularly dense portal of blackened haze - and branching inconsistently in either direction, Elsa could see that the ceiling had been eaten away completely in spots. Beyond the gaps, she noticed that the attics glowed a terrible orange. Below, the decorated carpets of the queen's wing were a thing of the past, as well as most of the planks underlying them. Only a few resilient panels remained, soot-covered and unable to conceal the view of the also burning second floor.

Elsa could not believe her eyes. It was like a nightmare - the whole evening had been, really - with equal parts fundamentally terrifying and thoroughly surreal.

However, the flames now beginning to intrude again upon the recently cleared corner of the hallway were quick to remind the queen of the reality of her circumstances. Their heat struck her in a way that, while what blazed before her could definitely be classified as a nightmare, forced her to realize that she was not safely asleep.

Once again, Elsa's eyes were drawn to where she could see the fire spreading to the attics and second floor through the holes around her. Elsa would have to eradicate the flames entirely - and fast - but such a task would easily be the most strenuous use of her powers since she had gained control.

Still staring at the fleeing flames, the queen realized what would be at risk if she were to fail in putting a halt to the spread. She thought of her sister and Martin below and then the party downstairs. She thought of Dee Daleon, too.

Reserved emotions again welled up inside of her and Elsa found that she could hesitate no longer.

The hallway howled in resistance as the queen threw her arms out with a powerful cry and waves of cold air flew from her fingertips. Teal forms seemed to rise from the hearts of the larger flames outside of the queen's quarters, fizzling into geysers that erupted as they extinguished the flames beneath. Whenever the enchanted, still-cold water dropped onto another blaze, a shower rose from it, too, creating a self-sustaining cycle of shimmering arcs throughout the hallway.

The icy water skipped around the massive corridor, impressing even its creator in its beauty and, more importantly, effectiveness. Even though her powers seemed to be capable of continuing the task on their own, Elsa didn't pull her supportive hands back until the magical fountains had eliminated all of the visible flames. She could still hear the faint crackles of hidden flames on the other floors, but she also felt the continuing pull of her powers at the back of her mind as they gave chase of their own accord.

The castle's fire would no longer be an issue, it seemed, and Elsa wasn't sure whether to be terrified or amazed by the sheer power of her magic and the emotions which fueled it. In the literal heat of the moment, she settled on somewhere in between.

The queen's next challenge would be getting through the hallway. She had planned to cross the wing and descend back into the ballroom via the main staircase; however, steam had risen from the extinguished flames before her, bathing the long room in a thick, opaque humidity. It would be difficult to traverse through the mist, especially considering the rickety spider web that was what remained of the floor. Elsa feared she may not make it to the other landing before slipping in the suffocating warmness and tumbling down through a gap into the floor below, but she had no other choice.

The queen began her cautious approach, feeling around with her feet for places where the planks under her had not been disintegrated. The warm mist clung to her, harsh against her exposed skin and making the maintenance of her icy dress a required constant effort. She allowed her conjured shoes to melt, giving her more control of her stride but making the wood beneath her feet slippery. A few times, the queen slid slightly on the slickness, recovering only with a balancing gust of cool air to the side.

After an interval of concentrated navigation, Elsa stood on a narrow walkway on the opposite wall outside of the door to her quarters. The cloud of fog surrounding her had thinned slightly - exposing a fairly safe path through the rest of the hallway - and she could no longer hear even the quiet crackling of flames.

Feeling a bit more optimistic about the situation, the queen prepared to continue and had just taken another step when the newfound silence of the scene was interrupted by a faraway shout.

"Further! I won't ask again!"

Elsa snapped her head in the direction of the perpetually mist-covered portal to her right. Although the voice's volume had been weak, it had clearly come from that direction. She remembered Anna's tale, assuming that the yell had filtered from the courtyard in through her own room's broken window.

"I swear that I'll kill him, I'm not joking around!"

Someone was in danger.

Elsa tried to think quickly. While crossing the rest of the main hallway to the staircase would be easy, reaching her room even from her present position looked like a challenge. The fire had originated outside of the door and thus that area of the floor had been the first to have disappeared. Through the dispersing steam, it was clear that the space reaching from the entrance's mouth to the queen's current perch was devoid of planks. Even if Elsa were somehow able to make it across the gap, she could not be sure of the state of her room beyond the portal.

"Is there anyone else who wants to question me?" a shout rang in from the courtyard again.

Elsa saw no other option. She willed ice to sprout from the plank below her and provide a crude bridge to the door. It sizzled fiercely in its inception, already beginning to melt under the heat of the pervading steam, but she kept at it, reinforcing the surface with her mind as best as she could. The queen proceeded carefully onto her walkway. Her bare feet gradually lost traction on its wet surface in their short, quick steps and, by the time she passed through the entrance, Elsa was sliding uncontrollably.

"What was that?" the roaring came - in response to some quieter comment that went unheard by the queen. "You still have faith in that witch, huh?"

Elsa slipped into her noticeably cooler (but just as steamy) room, falling to her knees in the slush that now made up the floor. She rose quickly, embarrassed even with her lack of company. The queen released the bridge behind her from her mental support to a great sizzle before examining her misty quarters.

The space had stood up much better to the blaze than the hallway had on account of its differing foundations; however, Elsa was still shocked by the destruction that the fire outside had wrought upon her chilled sanctuary. While nothing was completely melted, every portion of the room had been warped by the heat. The designs on the wall drooped, neither fully ice nor fully water. Her bed had thankfully not caught, but was soaked by the sweat of the ceiling above it. Only the back corner of the room remained untouched: a small square of unaffected icy flooring beside the broken window and, atop it, the queen's treasured mirror.

There was the sound of an impact through the window - the unmistakable reverberation of skin hitting skin.

Elsa trudged through the half-melted room, causing small ripples in the infirm flooring. Finally, she reached her destination and looked out upon the courtyard through the far wall's shattered pane.

The queen assessed the situation quickly, unsurprised to see the shadows of the Dark Mage and his captive on their shared stage just as Anna had described. She noticed the diplomat below them, hands raised in reluctant concession, and the frightened townspeople at the gate.

"Anything else?" the Dark Mage's words continued to boom, his question directed towards the hostage whose face now bled on account of the recently delivered punch. The performer winced in pain, but did not speak. "That's what I thought. Now-"

"Let go of him!" Elsa called out of the window. Everyone on the terrace looked around in shock for a moment, unable to place her in the darkened queen's wing. Hope welled within the majority of them. They all knew who had given the order. Even the Dark Mage could deduce whom the stately voice belonged to.

"Queen Elsa!" he bellowed with an odd amount of excitement. Under his hood, the mage's eyes twinkled as he looked to the upper windows again, trying to locate the source of the demand. "We were beginning to worry that you wouldn't be joining us."

Elsa brushed off the taunt and repeated her demand. "Release him," she said firmly. "Do it now."

"I'd be happy to," the Dark Mage answered, though his hands stayed unmoving on the old man's shoulders. "First I'll need you to reveal yourself, though. I'll need some insurance that I won't be blasted with ice as soon as I let him go."

The queen paused. The thought of attacking the man with her powers had not even occurred to her. In truth, she was unsure of her ability to consciously direct the magic at someone else. Elsa did not want her powers to be responsible for _anyone's_ harm ever again - not even the imposing mage - especially considering the power it had exhibited just minutes before. Thoughts of William Daleon raced through her mind, distracting her.

The cloaked man picked up on her silence, continuing with a pained chuckle. "That was your plan, wasn't it?"

"No," Elsa contended from the window. She shook her head to snap out of her memories. "I will not harm you, you have my word. Please, just put him down."

The promise was unsatisfying to the mage, who still pivoted from side to side in vain search of the hidden speaker. He noticed that his flames were no longer visible inside of the building and correctly guessed her to be somewhere in her wing, however a mere assumption would not be enough for his purposes. "I want to see you," he insisted.

Again, Elsa hesitated. There was no way for her to know what the exact capabilities of the Dark Mage were. She knew that exposing herself would be an incredibly risky move to make.

Unfortunately, when the performer whined as he was jerked forward and only his heels still touched the edge of the stage, the queen was forced to act.

"Fine!" she begged suddenly. "Fine!"

The Dark Mage pulled back on the hostage's shoulders in order to return him to relative safety. The eyes under the hood scanned the high windows of the queen's wing again impatiently.

In a flash of pale light and a clattering of additional glass, Elsa sent energy shooting through her room's broken window. It hovered outside and twirled in the newly-chilled air for a short time as it awaited her will. Finally, the sparkling form swept downwards. It drifted towards the brick surface of the courtyard gracefully, depositing a rapidly materializing staircase of ice along its path.

The queen hurdled through the window frame - now fully emptied of glass by her magic's accompanying gust - and stood on the top step just as her powers finished their construction.

"There she is," the Dark Mage hissed instantly upon seeing the display.

"Release him," Elsa reminded the man of their deal.

"Of course," the mage tossed his hostage to the side and the old man landed in a mess on the stage, inconsequential in his captor's eyes. There was something hungry about the Dark Mage's posture, now, and an undertone of finally realized anticipation in his statement. Elsa got the feeling that his focus was fully on her - that he had been _waiting_ for her.

"What is your purpose here?" the queen asked bravely, her voice as steady as she could manage. "Why did you set fire to the castle? Why do you threaten the people of Arendelle?"

"The same reason that you whipped up your storm, Queen Elsa!" the Dark Mage howled in response as if he had expected the inquiry and prepared his answer long in advance. "Who am I to contain the destruction of our mutual gift?"

Elsa was shocked by the reply and its immediacy. "What?" she asked, her quiet question only barely making it down the steps stretched out before her.

_Destruction._

"You're lucky," the Dark Mage bellowed, clearly no longer addressing only the queen but ridiculing the entirety of their audience as well. "You've been blessed with subjects so oblivious that they've already forgiven you for what you've done. It's only been one month since your magic nearly brought this kingdom to ruin, yet here they are celebrating it!"

The words cut into Elsa, now more than just the vague taunts of a clear enemy. Her deepest fears - the opinions that for their pain she had hoped were hers alone - filled the courtyard.

_What you've done._

"I can't allow for such desecration of the power that we share," the mage continued relentlessly. "These people," he gestured to the coincidentally empty courtyard, "have forgotten what magic _is_!"

Elsa looked around from the Dark Mage and the performer to Balan and then the villagers at the gate. They all watched her on the conjured staircase. She couldn't see any of them clearly in the darkness, however her toxic mind placed imaginary expressions onto their faces in the place of her eyes. Suddenly, they all were inspecting her with the suspicion that she felt that she deserved.

_What magic _is_._

"Have you forgotten, too, Queen Elsa?"

The queen shook her head weakly, the motion reserved, imperceptible in the night. Images flashed through her mind rapidly - a young, unconscious Anna with a white streak in her hair, a kingdom blanketed in snow, a man with an icy spike pressed to his neck, a once grand hallway's walls replaced by fire and then frost, and an unknown farmer dead beneath a cover of cold and broken wood.

Elsa would never allow herself to forget - even if the others had.

The Dark Mage did not wait long for a spoken answer. "Here," he bellowed, dropping his arms back to his sides, "how about I show you."

The beginnings of a new flame appeared in one of his hands.

"Impossible!" Balan cried, his attention ripped from the queen and back to the stage as soon as he heard the first crackles of fire. "You ran out of wood!" he insisted in disbelief. The fat man stumbled backwards but fell, plopping to the ground only a few yards from the foot of the central structure. "You're not real!"

The Dark Mage shuffled slightly to face the diplomat, all the while shifting his gloved fingers around the growing fireball. "You're very insistent," he growled menacingly. The cloaked man rose the flame into the air and joined his hands together underneath the mass that was quickly becoming too large for one of them to hold alone.

"No! Stop!" Elsa pleaded. She dared not to use her powers, instead opting to start down the stairs below her in a run, taking them two steps at a time. "Please stop!"

The Dark Mage refused to move from his position, however. He seemed to completely ignore the queen, his arms raised high in the air in preparation to send the fireball hurtling to the ground.

"Please!" Elsa, now halfway down her staircase, shouted again.

Finally, the mage reacted.

His massive frame turned with incredible swiftness - implying that such a movement had been his plan all along - and he was instantly facing in Elsa's direction again, the fireball above him so huge that the beacon now easily dwarfed his previous creations with its magnitude and brilliance. "You must be reminded!" the Dark Mage roared, his form an embodiment of sheer anger that no one present could even begin to understand.

The man under the robe started to swing the flames forward into a pitch, but the fireball never left his hands.

What transpired after the Dark Mage's final declaration was a blur to everyone as it happened and even more so after the fact. So much occurred in a single moment that no one in the courtyard truly saw all of it.

The crowds at the gates and in the ballroom screamed in terror. Elsa's arms flew out on their own in magical defense. The performer on the stage suddenly kicked his foot out and caught the back of his captor's left leg.

The Dark Mage was thrown off balance before he could throw his fireball and his knees hit the hard wood of the stage. The accumulated flames slipped out of his hands, piercing a hole through the wooden floor beside him and careening into the center of the structure.

Many hisses filled the courtyard as the fireworks within were all set aflame at once.

"Close the gates!" two informed guardsmen - one in the ballroom and one at the bridge - shouted in unison. "It's going to blow!"

There was the sound of the huge doors swinging shut before the entire terrace erupted into a swirl of multicolored, dancing, screaming flares.

Balan shielded his face uselessly, Elsa felt weightlessness as ice shattered beneath her bare feet, and the two magicians on the stage were consumed in the center of the explosion.


	9. Chapter 9

When Elsa awoke to her aching bones, she instantly wished that she had not. She felt as if she had been rudely interrupted - thrust roughly back into the real world from the blissful emptiness - and at first tried to reclaim the sleep, sinking down into the bed beneath her. Her eyes remained closed as the last of her blank dreams rolled off of her tongue with a grunt. She stretched a little and tried to relax.

That was when the queen noticed that the soreness she had felt was not mere tiredness as she had expected.

Elsa could sense a latent pain waiting inside of her every limb, threatening to burst out in earnest at any moment. Most of her skin was stiff, bandage-wrapped and numb; most of her muscles resistant to her attempts at motion. Her throat was dry and painful. Her right leg could not move at all.

Elsa winced, remembered everything, and finally opened her eyes wide.

"Queen Elsa?" came a familiar squeak from her bedside. It was Martin in his typical uniform, the bruise on his damp forehead a light peach but still vaguely apparent. The guardsman rose at once from his post at the infirmary wall and approached the bed. "Are you alright?"

Elsa had grown still again, afraid of the pain that further movement would undoubtedly cause. "I... I think so," she said politely, but speaking itself had already started to summon a terrible dryness in her throat. She wheezed out a cough.

"Let me get the doctor," Martin rushed out of the small room and into the conjoined office.

Elsa knew her surroundings to be the castle's sterile yet stuffy second floor infirmary. Even without moving, she could tell that she was wrapped in thick bandages on one of the room's three sickbeds, laying under its single silken sheet. An empty, worn chair stood a few feet to her right, regarding the injured queen with an impassive (and nonexistent) stare.

Within moments, Martin reentered the room just behind a tired, flustered-looking doctor. He was an older man who had been a part of the royal staff for decades. That was not to say that he had much experience on the job, however. Most of his work had consisted of treating Anna's frequent but insignificant indoor bicycling injuries.

The physician scurried to Elsa - stepping around the visitors' chair - and began examining her mildly burn-laden face with nervous glances.

"How do you feel?" he ventured after a few uncomfortable seconds.

"It hurts," Elsa rasped.

The doctor gulped. "Where?"

"Everywhere," the queen answered with effort. She coughed again. "I... Throat..."

"I'll go get her some water," Martin offered to a frantic nod from the other man before darting out of the infirmary, this time through a different door.

"How... Long?" Elsa tried to ask a few seconds after he had departed.

"Try not to strain your voice."

"How long... Was I-"

"About three days," the physician answered, afraid that the queen could repeat herself again if he refused. "Three days and a few hours, now."

"What-"

"Please, Queen Elsa," the doctor stopped his patient again. He had finished the limited examination that he could accomplish without physical contact and now stood helplessly at the bedside. "You must rest - that is the best we can do at the moment," he told the immobilized queen with pity in his voice.

Questions burned at Elsa's lips, but she knew to heed the man's words lest they burn at her throat as well. She would wait for the water, at least.

It was several long minutes before Martin returned to the infirmary with a rather large glass from the kitchen. He hurriedly bypassed the physician and brought it to the queen's mouth, gently tipping the cup forward towards her greedy, painful gulps. Elsa emptied it in one long, continuous drink and then gasped thankfully to signal that she was finished.

"I'll go get some more-"

"No," Elsa interrupted the guardsman before he could leave again. Her words still sounded scratchy, but, at the very least, it no longer hurt for her to speak. "I'm fine. I need to know what happened."

"What happened?" the doctor asked, horrified. "Queen Elsa, have you lost your memory?"

"No, no, no," Elsa would have shook her head in annoyance if she were not so sure that it would hurt. "I remember everything. The Dark Mage - Tell me what happened to the Dark Mage."

The physician looked relieved.

"He didn't survive," Martin announced.

"I see," Elsa said. She spoke deliberately, already fearing the answer to her next question. "And his hostage?"

Martin frowned. "He didn't, either."

The queen shuddered and whimpered at the ensuing pain.

"Queen Elsa, I must insist that you rest," the doctor said quietly. "Please, you cannot worry yourself with such things."

Elsa felt the truth of the old man's words in her itching skin, but she still had to know more. Arendelle Castle had been attacked - even in her present state, the queen felt obligated to know the consequences.

"What about the other man in the courtyard?" she croaked. "The party guest."

Both Martin and the doctor looked over Elsa and to the sickbed furthest from her own. The queen painfully shifted her head to the side to see that it was occupied. In the bed, a heavy, sleeping man shifted in unison with his weak snores, curled up and facing away from her.

"Ambassador Malhaas Balan of Geralde," the doctor commented reluctantly, not wanting to prompt any more conversation. "He was not as badly hurt as you. He should be well enough to leave very soon, I would expect."

"Was anyone else hurt?" Elsa followed up much to the physician's displeasure. She moved with less difficulty this time, turning to face him and the guardsman again with only a slight wince.

"No, Queen Elsa," the physician said.

"The courtyard - what about the courtyard?"

"Nothing that can't be fixed," the doctor assured the queen.

"Don't worry, Princess Anna has been handling everything," Martin added. "She has had men working around the clock on repairs to the castle. I would bet that she would even be helping them out, too, if she weren't in here watching over you so much," he gestured vaguely to the chair beside him. "If we're being honest, she's almost putting me out of a job."

Elsa felt a pang of regret as she remembered the last time she had spoken to her sister, the princess's final gasp cycling in her mind. What exactly the queen had said and why exactly she had said it were lost in her memory, overwhelmed by an accompanying guilt that transcended them both.

"Where is Anna now?" Elsa choked out.

"It's rather late," Martin replied. "Kristoff had just finally convinced her to get some rest before you woke up. I could go after them, if you so wish, but," the guardsman hesitated, "Princess Anna hasn't slept since the festival, I don't think. She can't have - she's been in here almost the whole time. I believe it would be wise to wait for her to come back in the morning."

"I agree," the doctor interjected.

Elsa nodded carefully. It sounded like her sister needed the rest as much as she did. The queen reluctantly allowed her sore muscles to relax and began to slump down into the mattress once more. Her craving for sleep returned immediately, even stronger than it had been before.

"Thank you both," she murmured, her eyelids suddenly very heavy.

"Of course, Queen Elsa," Martin was nearly standing at attention. The doctor mimicked his pose to the best of his ability and nodded.

The queen glanced over at the two sweaty men and the empty chair for a final time, turned her lips up in a polite albeit slight smile, and then closed her eyes.

* * *

Anna was practically dragging Kristoff through the second floor.

The ice master had come to the infirmary about half an hour before for the express purpose of getting his girlfriend to go to bed. He would be leaving to visit his family the next day (on a royal order to consult the trolls on the Dark Mage's attack, of course) and wanted to make sure that the princess had at least one good night's rest before his departure.

Leaving Anna in the wake of the disaster alone was going be hard enough. The fact that she had not slept in days didn't exactly instill him with confidence.

Needless to say, Kristoff had been relieved when the redhead had agreed to let him lead her to her bedroom.

Anna had said nothing as they left the infirmary - reasonable, Kristoff thought, on account of her assumed tiredness - but it was not long before the quiet seemed suspicious. The princess had delicately wrapped her arm underneath the ice master's own and was suddenly leading _him_ forward at a notably accelerated pace.

This fact only became a real problem when Anna pulled her companion gently to the side and they turned onto an hallway unfamiliar to Kristoff - a hallway that started taking them in the opposite direction of their alleged destination.

"Where are we going?"

"Nowhere."

"Anna!" Kristoff complained, but it was no use. Evidenced by her self-assured silence, the princess was in one of her resolved moods.

"We're going to the library first," Anna said simply. She sounded like she was distracted by something - she often did since the festival.

"The _library_?" Kristoff scoffed as they turned another corner.

"Yeah."

The castle's main library was at the end of the mysterious hallway, its entrance marked by a large, door-less arch.

Kristoff had never visited the room - most of his exploration of the castle was guided by Anna, and she had certainly never led him there - and the sheer wealth of volumes inside stunned him upon their entry. The ice master was never much of a reader himself, but, looking upon the towering bookcases that lined the torch-lit chamber's walls and formed orderly rows in its center, he for the first time felt as if he were truly missing out.

Anna released her grasp on the awestruck man and moved quickly to a shelf to the immediate right of the doorway. She began to trace her thumb across the spines within, muttering unintelligible things under her breath as she went.

"What are you looking for?" Kristoff asked once he had finished absorbing the scene. The ice master joined his girlfriend at the bookcase.

"Some books," Anna answered nonchalantly. She moved up a row, now searching on her tip-toes, and finally seemed to find whatever it was that she had been pursuing. With a few small hops, she tilted five books of various shapes and sizes out of their resting places. The princess stowed the volumes under her arm before checking a sixth on the shelf with her fingers, mouthing the inscribed title but seeming dissatisfied by it.

"When did you suddenly decide to take up reading?" Kristoff teased from behind her.

Anna silently recited another spine and then added its flimsy novel to her cache. "The tutors always used to assign a lot of reading."

"Weird."

"What? It wasn't like there was much else to do around here, and I had to keep up with my studies-"

"No, not that," Kristoff's smugness was almost audible in his words. "I just don't see any tutors around."

Anna turned, finished with her task, and returned the ice master's grin with a fake pout. "Hey, I read other stuff, too. For fun. Sometimes."

Kristoff swiped two of the books from the princess's loose hold before she could react. He squinted at their covers one after the other, reading their titles aloud. "_Sea of Love_ and _The Troll Prince_?"

Anna hastily snatched the volumes back and tucked them under her arm and secured them tighter than she had before. Kristoff seemed to consider something for a moment as he watched her.

"You know, sappy romance novels I can believe," a smirk appeared on his face, "but aren't you a little old to still be reading fairy tales?"

This time, Anna started giggling.

"Hey, now. Don't knock the romance novels," she scolded in jest amidst laughter. "And you're never too old for some good fairy tales."

"_Right_."

"But these aren't for me, anyway," Anna calmed herself. "Well, they are, but not really. Well, yes, _really_, but I didn't pick them, okay?"

"Okay?" the ice master repeated, raising an eyebrow as his own smile also faded.

"What I mean is that I only wanted _these_ books specifically because I caught Elsa reading them the other night."

"Queen Elsa?" Kristoff grew more confused. "_Queen Elsa_ was reading _Sea of Love_?"

"_I know_," Anna nodded. "I thought it was weird, too. I mean, the night before the festival I caught her in here super late. I guess that's not that weird, but she had all of these," the princess gestured to the collection under her arm, "laying around on the ground."

"Maybe she was so enraged by their disgusting cheesiness that she threw them-"

"No, she was actually _reading_ them," Anna stressed, nevertheless unable to keep from cracking a tiny smile at the playful jab. "I asked her about it."

"What did she say?"

"She just said that they were '_all_ about love'," Anna recited, recalling her sister's terse explanations.

"I don't get it."

There was a long pause. Anna's shoulders drooped. "I don't, either," she said, but Kristoff got the feeling that it was something larger than a mere statement of agreement. The admission meant more to the princess than it did to him.

"Anna?"

"You remember how I told you about when Elsa and I talked on the night of the festival?"

Kristoff nodded. The ice master remembered it well - he had caught a teary-eyed Anna sitting in the infirmary two nights before and she had told him all about the queen's harsh words of misunderstanding.

Suddenly, he realized why Anna's words had been so heavy.

"Elsa was right. I don't really understand her," the princess continued. "I thought I did. After everything that happened, I thought I understood everything, but now that I _really_ think about it... I'm not so sure," she paused in thought, her frame shaking softly under the pressure of held-back tears. "It's like I see things differently than her."

"See things differently?"

"Yeah," the young woman answered. "It's like there's something _just _in the way," she decided, her voice sounding strange to the ice master, inexplicably both deliberate and uncertain. "I mean, for some reason, I can't understand why Elsa likes to stay up in her room all day. I can't understand why she was reading these books the other day. I _definitely _can't understand why she still seems so worried all the time-"

"Well, why don't you just ask her?" Kristoff interrupted.

"Ask her?"

"Yeah, when she wakes up," the ice master said. "You could ask her about all those things."

"It's... It's not like that," Anna said slowly. Despite her pace, however, the princess sounded sure, as if she had thought through such a solution already. "I just feel like this isn't the kind of thing that we can just talk through."

Kristoff raised an eyebrow. "I'm sorry, who are you? Weren't you the one who was going to thaw Arendelle just by 'talking to your sister'?"

Although the comment was for the most part an attempt at a lame joke, Anna didn't even smile out of politeness. Instead, she seemed to contemplate the words deeply for a moment before replying.

"This is different," she decided finally. The princess again was distracted - lost in thoughts that were difficult to put into words. "I don't know why, but I just_ feel_ like I can't fix it like that this time," Anna admitted, scaring herself with the notion. "I feel like I have to find another way."

"Like reading?" Kristoff asked doubtfully.

Anna shrugged. "It's a start," she contended. "I'll start with the books and I won't stop until I figure it all out," the princess declared. "Whatever it is that I don't understand about Elsa... I'm going to do everything that I can to start understanding it."

Anna awaited Kristoff's response with stubborn, dedicated eyes. Of course, he found them cute, but he still knew all too well that the pools of cyan were not to be messed with. She was serious.

"Sounds like you've got a plan," the ice master said.

"I do," Anna nodded, a tiny smile of vindication emerging proudly from her once serious expression. "Yeah, I do."

"And, since you've got your books, we'll be moving on to step number two. What was it, again?" Kristoff took a moment, consulting an imaginary schedule. "Oh, yeah: sleep."

Anna's lips reversed their orientation in an instant. She had been hoping to get some reading done.

"Please, Anna?" Kristoff practically begged. "Have you even been _in_ your bed since the festival?"

"I've been spending a lot of time in the infirmary," the princess answered quietly.

"You don't say."

Anna remained silent and frowning.

"You need to get some rest," Kristoff insisted. "I can't leave for the Valley in the morning with you running on fumes. I don't know, you could collapse or something. I'd be a nervous wreck, you know - maybe an actual one, too."

The ice master could tell that she was starting to budge.

"Please?" he offered his hand to her. "The books will be there when you wake up, I promise. Do it for your sake, for my sake?"

One of the sides of Anna's mouth turned up once more. "Fine," she said, "but you can't stop me from bringing them to my room. You know, in case I can't sleep."

"I'll take it," Kristoff grinned in relief.

The pair exited the library holding hands.

"I doubt _Sea of Love_ can compete with those nice, warm, fluffy royal pillows, anyway."

"Oh, come on, it's really not that bad!" Anna protested. "You know, I think _you_ should read it after I'm done!"

"Not happening."

* * *

That night, Elsa sleep was lively for the first time since her injury. Her mind flared as her body rested, playing back the memories of the fateful festival until they were distorted to things only vaguely recognizable - shadows of their former selves corrupted by repetition and imagination.

In her dream, Elsa stood alone in the ballroom. The hall was decorated for the festival, but no such celebration was taking place. The room around her was both bright and lonely; jovial and vacant.

The queen stood on the royal platform - bound there by her recollection - and looked out of the open archway on the other side of the deserted room.

The terrace, too, was devoid of people, empty save for its two ice fountains and the grand stage between them reaching to the moon far above. The barrel-shaped structure - possibly the whole courtyard - reflected Elsa's stare.

In a few moments, a shape appeared atop the opposite platform and Elsa was no longer alone. A robed figure drifted out of the night sky, materializing from nothing. It was the Dark Mage, and he also watched the queen as she watched him.

Elsa wanted to say something, but she could not move.

Just as quickly as he had appeared, the Dark Mage rose his arms in a dramatic gesture and a roaring chuckle. From his gloved hands erupted countless fires, though they did not surge forward to collect themselves in the air this time. Instead, they wrapped in tight bands around the mage's fingertips and then his knuckles before leaping up onto the sleeves of his maroon cloak.

Elsa wanted to do something, but she could not move.

Soon, the Dark Mage's entire body was covered by the flames. His howling laughter only grew more severe under the new robe, the distorted sound of triumph smothered by the inferno.

It was when the fiery shape on the stage glowed its brightest - a magnificent, intimidating golden star in the darkness - that the guffaw ceased, leaving the noise of the flames alone to fill the deserted courtyard. The conflagration had begun to recede from the mage's wrap, now moving on hungrily to the stage below.

The fire left the Dark Mage's head completely. It had eaten away the hood of the cloak, but something remained underneath, untouched - the enigma's face.

Dee Daleon's eyes pierced through the hollow festival, focused pleadingly on the queen's own.

Elsa wanted to help her, but she could not move.

And the widow was trapped just like her counterpart. They waited, staring at each other.

They both knew what would happen next.

A few painful seconds passed and the women heard the sound of hundreds of fuses lighting within the wooden structure. A few more and the explosions began.

The last thing that Elsa saw was a flurry of multicolored lights - the _same_ multicolored lights - flooding through the archway before she awoke with a startled gasp and was delivered back to the safety of the infirmary.

"Queen Elsa!" Martin was at her bedside instantly, jumping up from his vigilant stance against the wall and skipping around the still-empty visitors' chair. It had been hours since the queen had stirred for the first time and now the night was just beginning to shrink from the infirmary's sole window. "What's wrong?"

"Daleon," Elsa muttered, thankful for the ability to finally speak but still limited by the renewed dryness in her throat. "Mrs. Daleon."

"Mrs. Daleon?" Martin asked, trying to make sense of the queen's injured plea. "Dee Daleon, that assassin that they caught trying to get into the festival? What about her?"

"Where?" Elsa managed.

"Where?" the guardsman repeated. "Well, as far as I know she's still in the dungeon. Last I heard, the captain was awaiting your approval for the execution."

"Execution?"

Martin nodded. "You talked to her on the night of the festival, didn't you? She brought a knife when she tried to sneak into the ballroom. She was going to, uh, kill you, Queen Elsa."

"No... Execution," Elsa said scratchily. Although she struggled to speak, the queen's eyes bored into her subject with a terrifying sternness.

"_No execution_?" Martin asked nervously, unsettled by the look. "I... What do you mean no execution?"

"Release Mrs. Daleon," it took all of Elsa's effort to make her demand absolutely clear. "Martin... You... Take her home..."

"You can't be serious," the guardsman said. "You do realize that she tried to-"

"Queen's orders," Elsa interrupted and then promptly coughed, blocking out any further objections.

The two looked at each other for a long time after the fit had subsided. Martin searched the queen's communicative eyes for flaws in her resolve; Elsa proved that there were none to be found.

It was an order. The highest one that the guardsman had ever received himself, in fact.

"Yes, Queen Elsa."

Martin stepped away from the bed, dumbfounded. He rushed into the office, rustled the physician from his own restless sleep to inform him of the situation, and then left the infirmary altogether without so much as looking back.


	10. Chapter 10

In the wake of the festival, Martin had become nothing less than a hero among the men of the Royal Guard. Overnight, the squeaky, propriety-obsessed guardsman had changed into a celebrity in the eyes of his peers - 'the kid who saved Princess Anna', they called him.

Unfortunately, Martin was unhappy with his newfound status.

Sure, he liked his fellow guardsman viewing his fading bruise as the badge of honor that it was - proof that he was willing to serve Arendelle at any cost - but, nonetheless, he often avoided the subject altogether when approached.

Firstly, he found fault with his assumed title. He hardly considered himself to have _saved_ his companion. In fact, there were several times where he would have been killed himself if it were not for the princess.

Beyond that, Martin simply did not want anyone getting the wrong idea. He was a part of the Royal Guard because he desired to serve the royal family, not because he desired the praise afterwards.

So as the other guardsmen at their posts along his path to the dungeon saluted the hero in his passing, he only awkwardly nodded and continued on his hurried way.

Martin was panting and, of course, sweating by the time that he arrived and pounded a few knocks into the prison's metal door.

After a while, it was apparent that there would be no answer.

The confused guardsman knocked again. He knew that there should have been someone on duty - there _was_ a prisoner, after all. "Hello?" he called cautiously. "Open up."

Perking his ears, Martin could hear a loud, familiar snort carry outwards through the door. He recognized it instantly from many sleepless nights in the barracks. It was one of Isaac's classic, eardrum-shattering snores reverberating on the brick walls within.

"Why they keep putting you on night duties I may never know," the guardsman in the hallway muttered to himself before knocking one last time, now with significantly more force than before.

Inside, the noise finally jolted Isaac awake. "Huh?"

"Open the door already or I'll report you to the captain for sleeping on the job," Martin teased through the door. "Again."

Isaac rubbed the sleep from his eyes in a perhaps too-practiced motion and was at the door in an instant, unlatching and opening it as quickly as he could manage.

"You wouldn't," the plump guardsman said once the other had entered. He locked the door back up rapidly and dashed back to his seat at the guard desk as if he were afraid that his friend would take the chair instead. "You know they have me pulling double shifts since the festival incident. I've had to work the prison overnight and then the castle gates until it's almost dinnertime - they act like I'm a statue, or something."

"You're about as competent as one," Martin brushed off the complaint, eyeing a conspicuous pool of liquid on the guard desk. "A snoring, drooling one."

Isaac shot the other guardsman an unenthusiastic glare. "Anyway, I feel really bad about what happened. Queen Elsa and Princess Anna seemed pretty upset that I left my post."

"Upset that you left your post?" Martin almost laughed. "Yeah, I'm not so sure about that one."

"I thought I had a good reason. I didn't know that they would be so angry," the prison guard pouted. "Hey, aren't you supposed to be in the infirmary with Queen Elsa?"

"Yeah."

Isaac shrugged his heavy shoulders and grunted. "She's probably pretty mad at you, too, then," he said.

"Somehow I doubt that," Martin shook his head. "Considering she's the reason that I'm here in the first place."

"What do you mean?"

"Queen Elsa herself had assigned me to escort-"

"No way," Isaac blurted out. "Queen Elsa's been sleeping for three days straight. She didn't assign you to do anything."

Martin narrowed his eyes and stared at his friend. The other guardsman just looked back at him with utter cluelessness.

"Isaac, I was just in the infirmary. Queen Elsa woke up."

"She did?"

Martin nodded slowly. "Amazing," he quipped.

"Is she okay?"

"A little worse for wear, but the doctor said that it was nothing that couldn't be fixed."

"Good. You said she gave you some orders?"

Martin rolled his eyes. "Right, I did. She said that I was to release Mrs. Daleon and-"

"What?" Isaac interrupted again. "No she didn't. Queen Elsa would never order the release of her own assassin."

Martin's eyes peeked out of mere slits.

"She would, actually," he sighed out. "I would know, you know, since I was _just_ in the infirmary with her when she gave _me_ the order."

"She did?"

"Yes."

"Seriously?"

"Yes!" Martin chirped in frustration. "Listen to what I'm saying. A _very awake _Queen Elsa just told me _very clearly_ that I am to have you release Mrs. Daleon and then escort her to her home."

"But I can't take her home," Isaac said. "I have gate duty, remember?"

"No, I didn't mean..." Martin trailed off hopelessly. At least his friend had the whole compassion thing going for him. "Never mind. Just unlock the cell for me, I'll handle the rest."

The prison guard reluctantly rose from his seat and produced a ring of keys from one of his uniform's many pockets. Together, the two guardsmen approached the cell at the back of the dungeon.

"Are you sure we should just be letting her go?" Isaac asked as he started on the locks. "Shouldn't we ask the captain first, at least?"

"Queen Elsa's orders take precedence," Martin said, though he, too, was unsure. He looked through the entrance's grating to see the widow motionless on the slab in the corner of the concrete room, the scene illuminated by the rising sun through the singular window. How the woman had been sleeping with his friend's snoring in her ears Martin would never know. "I believe 'now' was the word she used."

Martin expected something else, but Isaac just whispered, "if you say so," before popping the door open. The suddenly taciturn guardsman allowed his friend to enter first.

"Mrs. Daleon?"

Dee was somehow finally awoken by the call.

The widow rolled off of the uncomfortable resting spot with a stiff-looking back and an appropriate grunt of effort. She was not at all what Martin had been expecting - she looked more like a pitiful innocent than any sort of an assassin - and indeed the woman seemed quite different to Isaac, too. Her shoulders were set forward not in aggression but hopelessness; her jaw clenched but unthreatening; her expression pained but reserved. The woman regarded them silently, her blank stare the only hint that she was even listening at all.

Dee was desperately trying to hold together something broken deep inside of herself, and for the moment she was succeeding. The guardsmen could not even begin to discern her true nature.

"Mrs. Daleon hasn't been talking much," Isaac explained quietly to his friend. Though he had spent more time with the woman than anyone over the course of her imprisonment, he was clueless as to her uncharacteristic silence. He had returned from the festival's confusion to find Dee changed - her wailing sobs replaced by a just as heavy noiselessness.

Over his several shifts since, the prison guard had not heard a peep from the cell.

Martin nodded. "Mrs. Daleon, I come with orders from Queen Elsa. You are to be released immediately and escorted to your home."

For a split second, the widow _almost _looked like she might say something. She did not.

"She was quite insistent that we leave right away," Martin continued in the absence of a response. "I don't expect you have any business to attend to here before we leave?"

Dee only glowered at the man, a crack in her otherwise neutrality.

"Okay," Martin averted his eyes with an uncomfortable glance in his fellow guardsman's direction. "Let's get going, then."

Isaac shrugged before turning and leading the way back out of the cell. Martin followed before Dee eventually sulked out into the hall behind him.

The footsteps and their ringing echoes were the only noises in the prison for a while.

"Thanks, Isaac," Martin finally said once they had arrived at the metal exit.

Isaac unlocked the door and then resumed his seat at the guard desk, already settling back into a suitable napping position. "No problem," he yawned. "I'll probably see you on the way back in. Gate duty, remember?"

"Right. See you then."

Both Martin and Dee were wordless for the remainder of their journey out of the castle.

The guardsman did not even try to speak to the released prisoner. He never had been the best at generating conversation. She did not exactly seem receptive to it, either.

It was only as the two emerged onto the battered courtyard that the widow finally made a slight noise. Dee seemed to view the charred bricks where the fireworks-stocked stage had stood with a suddenly returned interest.

Martin thought he heard her whimper.

The guardsman dared not ask her if she was alright, however. Dee's show of emotion was so fleeting that by the time that he had turned to look at her it had already been tucked away. Her mask of impassivity was applied with such a deftness, in fact, that Martin began to doubt if he had truly heard anything at all.

* * *

"Princess Anna?"

Anna awoke to a few uncertain knocks on her bedroom door. The princess lay in a mess of blankets and books and hair. She bolted upright at the noise, brushing the nearby _Sea of Love_ (which she really had _tried_ to start before falling asleep) off of the bed in the process.

"Princess Anna?"

"Yes, I'm awake," Anna called back, for once telling the truth with those words. She leapt off of her bed and dashed for her mirror, already starting to frantically tame her hair with her bare hands before she picked up a brush from her vanity.

In the hallway, Kai waited for the return of snoring. "Princess Anna?" the servant asked when he heard no such thing.

"I'm _really_ awake," Anna giggled, rolling her eyes at her reflection. At least most of her hair had given into the brush and rested tenuously straight on her shoulders. She decided that that would have to be good enough and hurried to the door.

"So you are," Kai greeted the princess with a smile as she emerged. "Good morning, Princess Anna."

"Good morning," Anna returned the gesture. Though she regretted sleeping slightly - there was so much work to be done otherwise - the princess felt refreshed by her much-needed rest. "Any news on Elsa?"

"I was just about to go down to the infirmary to get an update," Kai said. "I must apologize, I have just woken up myself."

"I'll join you!"

"If you wish, though I would suggest that you see Mr. Bjorgman off first."

"See him off? I thought he wasn't leaving until ten."

Kai's eyes fell to the floor and suddenly Anna noticed the tiredness in them.

Surely the servant had been just as fatigued as she since the festival. He had been instrumental in handling the affairs of the kingdom in Elsa's incapacitation - already familiar with the duties from his stint as stand-in head of state prior to the coronation. Furthermore, the man felt obligated to join the sisters in the infirmary in the free time he did have, resulting in little to no sleep for the caring aide.

"I suppose we both overslept," Kai mumbled, embarrassed by his weakness. "It's nine fifty. Mr. Bjorgman should be setting off from the courtyard soon. I thought that you might want to say goodbye before he left."

"Thank you, Kai," Anna said. "For everything. I'll join you in the infirmary after I'm done. You'll make sure Elsa is alright, won't you?"

"Of course, Princess Anna," the servant bowed.

"I'll be there as soon as I can," Anna nodded one last time before turning and darting down the hallway, strands of red hair flying out from their hastily-made arrangement in her rush.

* * *

When Anna reached the courtyard, Kristoff was just putting the last of his issued supplies into his sled. While a trip to the Valley of the Living Rock would only take a few hours, the ice master was scheduled to spend the night on the 'diplomatic mission' and thus was afforded a more than adequate load by the crown.

Kristoff was trying to fit a few wrapped gifts for his 'hosts' and a bag of carrots for Sven (to share) into the trunk when Anna crept up behind him under the terrace's front gateway.

"Thought you could sneak off without saying goodbye, huh?"

The princess's surprise elicited a small jump from her boyfriend.

"Anna," Kristoff groaned, dropping the final bags into the back of the sled before turning. Around the front of the vehicle, an already-harnessed Sven also greeted the familiar face with some fitting reindeer noises.

"Good morning," Anna grinned back at them both.

"You're supposed to be sleeping," the ice master replied flatly. "It's too early. I didn't want to wake you."

"It's ten in the morning!"

Kristoff thought about that for a moment. He shrugged. "Pretty early for me. And you need the rest."

"I _needed_ the rest," Anna corrected him. "I feel pretty rested right now, thank you very much."

Kristoff glanced up at the princess's frizzy jumble of hair. If that wasn't a product of sleep deprivation, he wasn't sure what was.

Anna noticed his eyes and tried her best to pat the rebellious locks back down.

"I wanted to say goodbye before you left. It's your first overnight trip since we met, you know," the princess said.

Kristoff could not help but blush. "That's, uh," he coughed in nervousness, "that's very, uh, very thoughtful of you."

"I know," Anna squealed. She pulled Kristoff into a hug, nuzzling her head into one of the man's broad shoulders. "I'm going to miss you."

"I'm going to miss you, too," the ice master whispered back, every trace of annoyance now gone from his voice. "You know, you could come with me if you wanted. The kitchen gave me plenty of food, and you could see Bulda and Grand Pabbie and-"

Anna pulled her head back from its resting place to look at Kristoff directly.

"I can't leave the castle until I know that Elsa's okay," she said.

"I know," the ice master frowned.

Soon, however, his downturned lips were covered up by the princess's own. Fifteen seconds later, after the lengthy kiss was over, Kristoff knew that he would not be able to go back to pouting for quite some time. Both he and the princess were blushing now.

"I should get going."

"Me, too."

The two broke up their embrace and the ice master took one final, still-distracted look to make sure that his cargo was secure. Satisfied, he rounded the sled and jumped up into the seat in its front.

"Thanks for doing this, Kristoff," Anna called behind him.

"All a part of the ice master's duties," her boyfriend said. Sven snorted as he started to pull the wheeled sled out of the courtyard. "I think it is, at least."

"Make sure that you don't forget anything that Grand Pabbie says about the Dark Mage," Anna continued, cupping her hands around her mouth to make sure that her voice would travel. "I expect a full report tomorrow!"

"Reports are _definitely _not part of the duties!" Kristoff shouted back over his shoulder. He kept yelling for a while longer, but he had grown too far away to be heard by the princess.

Anna smiled, shook her head, and watched across the bridge until the ice master and deliverer disappeared from sight.

She had started walking towards a nearby door - the one that would yield the most immediate path to the infirmary - when she heard someone call her name.

"Princess Anna!"

Anna was unable to immediately identify the voice. She was unaware that she and Kristoff had even had company in the courtyard. The princess looked to both sides, but she saw no one in the vicinity.

"Over here."

Isaac stepped out of a shadowy place under the archway connecting the terrace to the bridge and into the morning light.

"Oh," Anna's mouth seemed to purse as she twirled to face the uniformed man. She remembered him vaguely from the festival. He was the one who had told Elsa about William Daleon. "Isaac, right?"

"Yeah," the guardsman nodded.

"Were you _spying_ on us?"

"What?" fear washed over Isaac's face. "No, no, _no_ - I'm on gate duty and I didn't want to interrupt. I'm sorry, I-"

"Gate duty?" Anna eyed the shady spot from which the man had emerged. "Isn't that post supposed to be out on the bridge?"

"Well, uh, you see..."

Isaac was cracking under the princess's suspicious glare. It was nothing so severe as to get him to lock up, but the pressure certainly sped up his rate of speech.

"It was just so _bright_ and _hot_ and I've been assigned double shifts for the last three _days_ and I'm really _tired_ and I wanted to find a place to-"

Anna scoffed. He had been asleep in the darkness.

"It won't happen again, Princess Anna," the guardsman finished sullenly. "I promise."

The princess sighed.

"I can't really hold it against you," she broke the tension with a gracious smile. She remembered Kai's tired look and her own inability to stay awake the night before. Isaac's mouth dropped in awed gratefulness. "We've all been tired around here. Some more than others, of course, but..."

Anna's thoughts gravitated back to the queen's wellbeing.

"Anyways, if you'll excuse me, I must go check on my sister," she began to turn.

"Princess Anna!" the guardsman stopped her in a burst of courage.

"Yes?" Anna breathed out to calm herself before spinning back around.

"Listen, I'm sorry about leaving my post on the night of the festival," Isaac muttered, unable to look at the princess in his shame. "I know it upset you and Queen Elsa and I just wanted you to know that I'm truly, _truly_ sorry."

Anna simply stared at the guardsman for a moment. He thought that his incompetence was responsible for the sisters' conflict at the party?

The princess was watching Isaac kindly when he finally braved a look back upwards.

"Don't blame yourself," she said. "All of that was my fault, not yours. Let's just say that Elsa likes to be informed about everything immediately," the princess's voice fell to a whisper. "No matter what it is."

"Thank you, Princess Anna," Isaac bowed shakily. Despite having been seemingly forgiven, he had still been fearing the moment of his inevitable apology for days.

"Is that all?"

"I think so."

Anna turned again. She was not in the least surprised when the guardsman interrupted her stride once more just a few moments later.

"Princess Anna!"

"Yes, Isaac?"

"You'll still tell Queen Elsa what I said, though, won't you? You know, since you're going to see her and all. _She_ might still think it's my fault."

"I will," Anna nodded. "I'll tell her as soon as she wakes up."

"Thanks."

The princess took a few more steps.

"Princess Anna!" Isaac called after her.

"What?"

"She's not awake yet?"

"Huh?"

"I saw Martin earlier. He said that Queen Elsa was awake."

"He did?" Anna's heart skipped a beat.

"Yeah, he said she woke up and ordered the release of that prisoner - Mrs. Daleon."

"He _did_?"

"Is she awake or not?" Isaac asked, quickly becoming worried. He was unsure if he could handle being responsible for another screw-up. "Because if she's not, we might have a little bit of a problem."

Thoughts rushed through Anna's mind. She knew that Martin was trustworthy, so his words had most likely been true. Her sister was finally awake and, for some inexplicable reason, she had ordered the release of her own would-be assassin.

"I have to go."

The princess took off in the direction of the nearest door. This time, she did not even hesitate when Isaac continued to shout after her.

"Princess Anna!"

"Stay there!" Anna called back. "I'll take care of everything! Just try not to fall asleep again!"

Isaac obediently stuck to his post and could only watch as the princess disappeared into the castle.

* * *

Anna sprinted through the castle at a breakneck pace, taking the steps two at a time when she encountered a staircase and making messy-angled swerves through doorways as necessary. She reached the hallway leading to the infirmary in half a minute flat, but quickly noticed that her progress was blocked by a large man who had just emerged from the sickroom's entrance.

"Look who it is!" Balan bellowed with a characteristically confident and wide smile, stopping directly in front of the princess. "I was hoping that I would run into you before I left."

"Hello, Ambassador Balan," Anna replied. She quickly made an effort to both catch her breath and fix her undoubtedly critically messy hair in the presence of the dignitary.

Anna eyed the now closed door of the infirmary behind him - so close yet so far away with the chatty diplomat blocking her path.

She had gotten to know the man quite well during his recovery process. While he, too, had been injured in the Dark Mage's explosion, his injuries were nowhere near as severe as the queen's.

Most of the ambassador's wounds were of the flesh, manifesting themselves in deep scars across his body. The blemishes were unsettling to look at and surely painful to bear, however they had done little to restrict Balan in ceaselessly talking to the princess during her many infirmary vigils.

Anna and the diplomat had talked about countless things over the previous days - of their respective kingdoms' people, customs, and dormant alliance - yet still Balan looked unfamiliar standing in the hallway.

In the young woman's mind, he had forever been the weakened shape in the sickbed - a perception incongruous with the foreign agent's now returned elegant attire (which hid the majority of his injuries) and proud posture.

Anna almost was uncertain that it was the same man until her eyes scanned over his face and quickly looked away from the line of missing flesh that traced its way from his left cheekbone to his ear - his sole visible scar. After seeing that, she was sure.

"I have been released," Balan continued slowly, noticing the princess's focus. "Of course, my recovery is ongoing."

Anna smiled politely. She glanced over to the infirmary door again. She supposed that it would be improper to brush off the ambassador without explaining herself.

"My sister, is she-"

"With that in mind, the doctor said that I am not yet fit for sea travel," the man's voice overpowered Anna's. Balan had, of course, picked up on the princess's anxiousness, but he still had far too much to say. "It would seem that I am stuck in Arendelle for the time being. One of the better places to be stuck in, in my opinion."

"Oh?" Anna asked emptily. "You're welcome to stay at the castle if you'd like."

She was ready to offer him anything if it meant getting past him.

"It wouldn't be any trouble?"

"No," the princess shook her head quickly. "Listen, is Elsa-"

"If I were to stay in the castle, it certainly would make our meeting easier to arrange."

The meeting - Anna recognized the word with a silent groan. All of her conversations with Balan in the infirmary had inevitably drifted towards the mysterious conference.

The ambassador had explained innumerable times that he had come to Arendelle as not only a party guest but a diplomat. Balan was almost always talking of his visit's vague political purpose, however he had always insisted that the _real _discussion was of far too much importance to be had outside of an 'official meeting between two capable, healthy parties'.

Anna assumed that now that he had been released he was ready to get on with just that.

"I was actually just talking to Queen Elsa about it," Balan said with a slight frown.

"She's awake?"

"Oh, yes," the ambassador replied. "It would seem that she is in no condition to be resuming her duties, however. I suppose that you will still have to represent Arendelle in our conference."

"Yes, of course," Anna forced a smile. In all honesty, her mind was not on the meeting at all. "I'll have to check my schedule right after I-"

"How about tonight?"

"Tonight?" Anna gulped. Again, her eyes were drawn to the sickroom's entrance just beyond the ambassador's wide frame. "Tonight's good, I guess."

"Fantastic!" Balan looked even more proud than he had before, one step closer to his vague, grand goal. He grinned at the princess in triumph; she returned the effort in mere reciprocity, all the while trying not to look at the scar on his face.

"Will you be taking me to my lodgings?" the ambassador asked.

Anna's eyes widened. Surely he would not keep her from seeing Elsa for even longer. "Will I be-"

Thankfully, the young woman's mutterings were interrupted by the sound of footsteps coming from behind her human obstacle.

Kai appeared on the far side of the hallway. The servant was making his own way to the infirmary with a glass of water for the queen, his drooping eyes on the ground.

"Kai!" Anna practically shouted out in recognition.

"Princess Anna!" the man suddenly stood at attention, nearly losing his grip on the cup. He quickened his pace until he had reached the ambassador's side. "What is the matter?"

"Kai, Ambassador Balan will be staying at the castle until he is well enough to travel," the princess said in the most proper voice that she could manage.

"I will show him to a guest room right away," the servant nodded in response, instantly understanding the situation from the Anna's voice.

"Are you in a hurry?" Balan asked the princess, though he already knew the answer. He smirked in such a way that Anna could not tell if he was offended or not.

"No, no... Well, yes," Anna scrambled. "I mean, no offense to you, of course. I came here to check on my sister - I haven't seen her since she woke up."

"I have never felt so absolutely unimportant," Balan joked. For some reason, the comment still felt serious. "I suppose that is all fair enough, however. Tonight, then?"

"Tonight," Anna agreed, blushing.

"I'll find you," Balan said - it was a promise.

"Queen Elsa requested this," Kai handed the cup of water over to the princess.

"Thank you, Kai," Anna found herself expressing her great gratitude to the servant for the second time that day. He merely nodded and then returned to his duty.

"Right this way, Ambassador Balan."

The two men proceeded down the hallway in the direction that Anna had come from.

Finally free, the princess wasted no time. In one smooth motion, she took a deep breath, stepped forward, and burst through the infirmary door.


	11. Chapter 11

"Anna!"

The cough that greeted the princess upon her entrance to the infirmary was one of joy - adulterated only slightly by the sleepy dryness of Elsa's throat.

Anna instantly brightened when she heard the noise. Her sister really _was_ awake.

"Hello to you, too, sleepyhead," the princess responded with a grin. She darted over to Elsa's bedside and held out the glass of water. "Kai brought you this."

Bound firmly by her bandages, the queen only eyed it desperately.

"Oh, sorry, sorry," Anna said quickly. She put the cup to her sister's lips and tipped it until it was completely emptied by pained gulps. Once it had been, she set the glass on a nearby table. "It's so good to see you. Well, I guess _technically _I have been seeing you a lot, but I mean it's good to see you when you're, uh, awake."

Elsa giggled a little. It hurt, but she was not about to show it.

"It's good to see you when you're awake, too," she said. The queen's voice was still a shadow of its former self, however it sounded much better than it had the night before, repaired partially by her morning nap and the much-needed water.

"How are you feeling?"

Elsa hesitated a moment before answering. "Fine."

"I wouldn't call it _fine_," the resident doctor piped up in his office, apparently overhearing the conversation from his desk. "With those burns, I don't think you will be moving for a few more days, Queen Elsa. Not to mention the shape that your right leg is in..."

Elsa frowned. She knew that it was the man's job, but he could have at least been a bit less blunt in his frantic diagnosis.

"Anna?"

"Yeah?"

"Could you get us some privacy?" Elsa's eyes went to the open doorway to the doctor's conjoined office as she whispered.

Inside, there was the embarrassed shuffle of an eavesdropping doctor.

Anna hurried over to the door and, after giving the flushed physician a quick smile, shut the door.

The princess returned to her sister's bedside, now taking her usual seat at the weathered (and quite uncomfortable) visitors' chair.

"It'll be good for you to get a few days of rest, anyway," optimism flowed from Anna to the queen. "Just call it a vacation from royal duties."

While she appreciated the sentiment, Elsa had trouble seeing how her current state of affairs was much of a vacation. The appearance of the Dark Mage, the damage to the castle, the deaths of two men and the injury of another - she could practically feel the work piling up around her even with her sister's help.

Worse yet, she was in no shape to even begin fixing the problems. Not only could the queen barely move or talk, but she also found herself knowing tragically little of the festival's aftermath.

"Is Arendelle okay?" Elsa decided to start with the most important question.

"Arendelle is fine," Anna assured her sister. "The repairs to the castle should be done tomorrow or the next day. Of course, some of your _personal touches_ melted, so we'll need your help once you're better, but other than that everything's in tip-top shape," the princess grinned. Elsa still looked at her expectantly, so she continued. "The town wasn't damaged at all."

"And the people?"

Anna's peppiness clearly stalled, her shoulders dropping.

"Well, I..." the princess trailed off. She did not want to worry her sister, however her mind quickly went back to the festival itself. She was not about to hide the truth from Elsa again. "None of the townspeople were hurt," Anna breathed out, "but a lot of them are afraid."

"Afraid of magic," the queen shuddered.

As difficult as it was for her to see her sister's reaction, Anna merely nodded.

Elsa remembered the Dark Mage's words. As he had foretold, it was doubtless that her subjects had been reminded of her own powers by the attack. The queen knew that her magic, too, had to have been a part of Arendelle's revived fears.

"I'm sorry, Elsa, it's just that no one quite knows what to think of the Dark Mage's attack yet," Anna said helplessly.

"So you haven't found out anything about him?" Elsa asked.

"No," Anna shook her head sadly. "I tried, but no one in town even saw the guy before he climbed up onto that stage. Kristoff is on his way to the Valley right now to talk to Grand Pabbie. Until he comes back, we don't really have any leads."

"I see," Elsa said. After a few moments of contemplative silence, she continued with a question. "Are _you_ afraid?"

"What?" Anna's head jerked backwards. "No, no. I'm not. Why would I be?"

"I'm afraid," the queen admitted. Again, her mind was drawn back to what the mage's words during their encounter; her eyes to something invisible and faraway. "The Dark Mage said that our powers were destructive. He said that I had forgotten what magic truly was. He could have been right, you know, considering..."

Anna immediately knew what her sister was referring to. "Elsa, about William Daleon," the princess began carefully, seeming to think about each word before she spoke it. "I didn't tell you at first because I knew that you would blame yourself if you heard about what happened. I didn't want you thinking like that."

Elsa did not respond, still half-lost in her own cyclical thoughts. Were her powers really like the Dark Mage's own? No, she could control them now. Surely they could not harm anyone now that she could control them.

"I know that I shouldn't have kept it from you," the younger sister's shoulder fell forward. "I was just trying to avoid... well, _this_. I'm sorry, Elsa."

Still, the queen's face was just as motionless as the rest of her injured body. Even if she had a grasp on the magic now, was there not always the danger of it slipping back out of control? No matter how hard she tried, there would always be the possibility-

"Please, _please_ don't be mad."

"I'm not mad," Elsa finally said, snapped out of her trance by the princess's words. "I'm not mad at you," she repeated, whispering as if she were sharing some kind of a secret.

"You aren't?"

Elsa's eyes focused on her sister at her side. The queen had not noticed that the young woman had begun to cry.

"No, Anna, no," Elsa's voice instantly took on a caring quality. Thoughts of the Dark Mage retreated to the back of her mind instantly, forgotten in the wake of something much more important. If the queen could have reached out to her sister, she would have. In her restricted state, an attempted half-turn on the bed in the same direction would have to suffice. "Of course I'm not mad at you."

"I just thought that after..." Anna cut herself off with a sob.

"After what?"

"After what you said the other night... About me not understanding..."

"Oh, Anna," Elsa whimpered breathlessly. "I'm so sorry."

"No, that's not what I mean," the younger sister did her very best to wipe her cheeks dry with her sleeve to limited success.

"What?"

"I mean... I don't want you to be sorry. You don't have to be sorry," Anna clarified between sniffles. "You were _right_."

Tears cascaded down Elsa's cheeks freely now. The icy liquid stung on her sensitive skin, but she did not care.

"No," the queen murmured as the infirmary grew ever so slightly colder.

"You were, Elsa, and you don't have to try to protect me by denying it," Anna insisted, making use of her ineffective sleeve once more. "You don't have to feel bad about it. I don't."

The two women's eyes locked and the queen saw that her sister's gaze was sure despite its wetness.

"I'm not going to lie, I was upset at first," Anna continued. "I had myself convinced that you were wrong - that I knew _everything_," she almost cracked a smile. A confident brightness had returned to her drying face. "But then I realized how silly that was. I said to myself, 'of course you can't know everything, Anna'," the princess waved a finger, scolding her imaginary self. "And I can't. I _don't_. It'd be pretty weird if I did, wouldn't it?"

Elsa's own sobbing quieted, her sadness and the lowered temperature of the room melting away under Anna's radiance. She nodded her head as best as she could.

"That's not going to keep me from trying, though," the younger sister declared, almost defiant in her grin. "I realize that I might not understand you now, Elsa, but I _promise_ that I'm never going to stop trying to. I hope you never stop trying to understand me, too."

Another tear rolled from the queen's left eye, though it was unlike the ones that preceded it. It was almost warm on her sensitive cheek - a product of happiness, not sorrow.

"Never," Elsa agreed.

Anna giggled, releasing a few joyous tears of her own.

"What?"

"I want to hug you," the princess said, "but I don't want to hurt you." She wiped her face again, her forearm now damp.

Elsa laughed. With a few grunts of effort, she forced her bandaged arms sideways as to accept an awkward embrace. "I'll just have to forgive you."

Anna carefully reached around her sister and, only touching the sheet that separated them lightly, hugged the queen.

"I love you."

"I love you, too, Anna."

There was nearly a minute of silence before Elsa finally whimpered in pain.

"Sorry."

"You're forgiven."

Anna leaned back into the visitors' chair and watched her sister readjust herself on the bed with minute, deliberate movements. Finally, Elsa's body seemed to relax all at once, comfortable in its position.

"Speaking of being forgiven," the princess began. "I just talked to Isaac in the courtyard. You know, that guard from the night of the festival? The one with the, uh, _talking problem_?"

"How is that 'speaking of being forgiven'?" Elsa asked, slightly concerned.

"He wanted me to be sure to let you know that he was very sorry for upsetting you by leaving his post the other night," Anna grinned now, wiping away the last of the tears that clung to her cheeks. "He thought that you were mad at him."

The queen's face loosened back up. "That's adorable."

"I thought so, too. I told him that you accepted his apology in advance. Hope you don't mind."

The princess looked around the infirmary, suddenly noticing that something was different about her surroundings than it had been the night before. She saw that the bed that the ambassador had once occupied was now empty, but recognized that that was not the change that she was sensing. Something else was missing from the sickroom.

"What's wrong?" Elsa asked.

"While we're on the subject of guardsmen, where's Martin?" Anna replied with a question of her own. The guardsman had not left the infirmary since she had personally assigned him to the post after his short stay - he even took his alleged breaks merely dozing against the wall and made use of the doctor's personal bathroom - so it was very strange for him to have disappeared altogether.

"Oh," Elsa started, quickly thinking of the best way to explain the truth which Anna was almost certain to be unhappy with. "I sent him to escort Mrs. Daleon to her home."

The younger sister nodded, remembering what Isaac had said about the prisoner being freed. It was yet another decision from Elsa that she was hopeless in understanding. "Uh, why?"

"I spoke to Mrs. Daleon on the night of the festival," the queen explained. "I would have released her then had the Dark Mage not attacked."

"Okay," Anna said slowly, "but why do you want to release her in the first place? The guards said that she was an assassin - your assassin."

"That is true," Elsa looked away from her sister, again regarding something that was not quite there. "Mrs. Daleon held me responsible for her husband's death. It was to be expected that she would try to kill me."

"It was?"

"If you thought that one thing was responsible for all of your problems, wouldn't you try to get rid of it?" the queen turned her head ever so slightly back to Anna.

"I mean, I guess... I don't think I'd try to _kill_ anyone, but-"

"I used to think that my powers were like that," Elsa took a deep breath, almost amazed that she was even able to say the words. Watching Anna's equally surprised face, she was encouraged to keep talking. "I used to think that if I could just _control_ them then everything would be all better."

"All better?" the princess prompted, her eyebrows turning downward in concern. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that I thought that my lack of control was the root of all of my problems," Elsa's voice grew in intensity as she continued. "It was my lack of control that locked me in my room all day; my lack of control that made me different; my lack of control that kept me from seeing you," the queen stopped abruptly, breathing deeply again before resuming. "I thought that if I could just master the magic, then all of those problems would go away."

"They didn't?" Anna put a hand on the sheet of her sister's bed, careful not to touch the injured arm nearby. "Elsa, you can control your powers now. You can leave your room whenever you want. We get to see each other all the time."

Elsa knew that her sister's words were true. Life _had_ improved considerably for the queen since she had mastered her powers, but that did not change the fact that problems still gnawed at her mind.

They swept under Elsa's every thought like shadows that she was powerless to rid herself of - shadows that reminded her of what she once was and what she could still always be.

"Some of them did," the elder sister confirmed at last, "but some of them didn't. Control over my powers wasn't the ultimate cure that I thought it was. Maybe it was ridiculous for me to think that it could be so simple in the first place."

The sisters considered it together.

"I don't know if it was or not yet," Elsa emerged from her thoughts first. She paused for a moment, thinking back to her visit to the dungeon a few nights before. "Mrs. Daleon thought that revenge would be _her _ultimate cure. That's why she wanted to kill me."

"But she changed her mind?"

"Yes," Elsa said. "She realized something that I never did when I thought that controlling my powers would fix everything. She somehow saw that there would be problems that remained even if she went through with her plan. Pain, fear, guilt..."

The queen paused, thinking first of the widow's words in the dungeon and then her own countless trials in front of the mirror. She was reaching the end of what she had practiced - nearing the conclusion that felt so simple and yet was so hard to put to words.

Elsa did not know how to get rid of the shadows.

The elder sister opened her mouth and nothing came out. She sighed.

"Mrs. Daleon is of no danger to me or anyone else anymore," Elsa finished finally with a hint of frustration. The queen was angry at herself for being unable to finish - angry at her thoughts for being so unutterable.

"Are you sure?" Anna asked, though her question was half-hearted. In truth, the princess's mind was on her sister's words.

"Absolutely."

The infirmary fell silent. The sisters could hear a few footsteps as the curious doctor in his office darted away from the other side of the closed connecting door, but neither of them cared.

Elsa was too busy thinking about just what was keeping the widow and her in the darkness; Anna too busy trying to unravel the meaning of what her sister had already said.

Suddenly, the door leading out to the hallway opened and both of the women were pulled from their thoughts by a familiar, polite voice.

"Princess Anna, Queen Elsa," Kai bowed his head to each of them as he entered the room.

"Kai," Elsa smiled at the servant, forcing her worries to the back of her mind. Anna, too, made the decision to put aside her considerations for the moment as she turned to face the man. "Thank you for the water," the queen looked over to the empty glass on the bedside table.

"My apologies, Queen Elsa, I will get you another right away-"

"No, no," Elsa said with a slight laugh, causing Kai to stop in his tracks partway to the cup. The servant's insistence upon maintaining awareness of his position was always amusing to the queen considering the fact that he had been much more than a mere subject to the royal family over the years. "I'm alright for now, thank you."

"Did you get the ambassador to his guest room?" Anna asked.

"Guest room?" Elsa's face took on an expression of only half-joking terror. "Ambassador Balan is staying in the castle?"

"Yes, and yes," Kai nodded to each sister in turn before focusing his eyes on the princess. "Ambassador Balan wanted me to be sure to tell you that he is 'exceptionally excited' for your meeting this afternoon."

"The_ meeting_," the queen repeated in instant comprehension.

"He talked to you about it, too?" Anna once again spun on the chair to face the bed.

"It didn't seem like he talked about anything else," Elsa teased. "He seemed pretty upset that I would be unable to participate. Do you think you will be alright meeting with him on your own?"

Anna's face scrunched up into a mock offended expression. "Of course!"

The queen watched her sister expectantly. The faux annoyance left the princess's face as quickly as it had appeared, replaced by a nervous smile.

"It would be nice to know what it will be about, though," Anna said through exposed teeth. "The ambassador was never really, uh, clear on that point."

Elsa chuckled a little at the princess's antics before responding with a certain air of seriousness. "That's what I was afraid of," she said, mulling it over in her head. "He avoided the purpose of the meeting when he was talking to me, too," the queen recalled. "That man is _quite_ odd."

Anna nodded in affirmation as Elsa seemed to return from her rather un-queenly contemplation with a slight blush.

"I suppose you will just have to find out what the ambassador is up to at the meeting," the older sister settled. Her eyes fluttered over to the man by the door. "You said it was this afternoon?"

"I thought we agreed on _tonight_," Anna, too, looked to Kai.

The servant nodded wearily in response. "My apologies, Princess Anna. Ambassador Balan seems to have a rather loose definition of 'tonight'. He decided that you should meet him for an early dinner in the dining hall. Considering his... insistence, I have already put in an order with the chefs," the servant said. "The meal is set to be held at three-thirty."

"Well," the princess quipped, "somehow I don't get the feeling he'll be late."

"It's strange for him to be so vague about something that he clearly thinks is of such great importance," Elsa reasoned aloud. She returned her focus to her sister. "You will have to be cautious during the meeting. I have a feeling that Ambassador Balan has a few tricks up his sleeve."

"Cautious?" Anna almost scoffed, whirling back around in the visitors' chair. "I'll be cautious, alright. I'm always cautious!" the princess bragged. She was the only one who had not noticed that in her turn she had nearly knocked the empty glass from the bedside table with a carelessly outstretched elbow.

"Of course," Elsa said amidst stifled laughter. "Your main focus should be finding out what exactly it is that Ambassador Balan wants. All you need is the details. If it's something simple like a trade agreement you are free to proceed, but if you sense _anything_ amiss in his proposal then just tell the kind ambassador that you're uncomfortable making a decision without my approval."

With her sister's words, Anna's facade of confidence faltered. "At least I won't have to lie," the princess said with a worried look.

"You'll be fine, Anna," Elsa converted her former giggles into a warm smile. "The way I understand it, you've been keeping Arendelle running all by yourself the last few days. A dinner meeting is nothing that you can't handle."

Anna blushed, embarrassed by her sister's praise. "It's mostly been Kai," the princess deflected the compliment, looking over her shoulder.

"With all due respect," the servant gestured back in the young woman's direction, "I only know how to take orders, Princess Anna."

"Thank you both," Elsa said. "The doctor says that I will have to stay bandaged for at least a few more days. I'm feeling well, however, so I would expect that I can resume at least some of my duties-"

The queen stopped abruptly, her voice going coarse as her throat returned to painful dryness. Elsa had not realized how thirsty she had gotten with all of the talking.

"I insist, now, Queen Elsa," Kai bowed, swept across the room to retrieve the empty glass, and quickly made his way back towards the door.

"Please, any... any reports from the staff, too," Elsa said with difficulty before descending into a fit of coughs that hurt more than just her throat.

"Yes, Queen Elsa," the servant reluctantly nodded and took his leave.

"You shouldn't push yourself, Elsa," Anna warned from the bedside.

"I'm sure... I can handle some reading," Elsa said once she had finally stopped coughing. Despite her weak frame, she was undeniably resolved. "Just... no more talking from... me," the queen rasped.

Elsa's eyes drifted over to the infirmary's window to see the sun framed high over the docks, slightly off to the east in the sky. It was only just before noon and she had slept late to begin with, so why was it that the queen felt so exhausted?

"I should still have plenty of time before I have to get ready," Anna stated, following her sister's gaze to the view of the glimmering fjords. "Why, are you tired?"

Elsa only grimaced in response.

"You're never going to get better if you don't get enough rest," the princess scolded.

The queen nodded slightly and winced more than a few times as she relaxed stiffly again into a comfortable position on the bed. Once she had finally settled, she took one last look at her sister.

Anna smiled. "Sleep," she ordered. "I'll make sure that those reports will be here whenever you wake up, alright? I'll make sure that I'm here, too."

"Thank-"

"Sleep!"

And Elsa was also smiling as she closed her eyes and drifted off.

* * *

The late-morning sun beat down on Martin atop his horse, at least giving him an excuse for his excessive sweating over the course of the journey out of Arendelle proper.

Since retrieving a few of the Royal Guard's horses from the stable in town, the guardsman had merely followed Dee on the beaten path to the Daleon Farmstead, his steed always trailing a few seconds behind the widow's own. Dee seemed to be treating her escort like some sort of a racing opponent and, while Martin would have preferred to ride at a more stable, slower pace, he was not about to say anything.

Neither of them were.

The wordlessness only ended once the widow's horse had reached the gate to the Daleons' property and Dee climbed off of her mount.

"Please, allow me," Martin offered politely from behind her, scrambling to the ground himself.

The woman ignored him, however, unlatching and swinging the rusty gate open to the tune of several metal screeches.

"I can make it on my own from here," Dee said once she had finished, not turning to face the guardsman in full, but at least speaking from over her shoulder. "Thank you for letting me borrow the horse."

"Uh, don't mention it," Martin stammered, but the widow was already off, moving swiftly down the cleared strip towards the farmhouse on the horizon.

For a moment, Martin mused that the horse had probably been slowing the woman down.

The guardsman took a length of thin rope from his pocket and linked the two horses' bridles before remounting his panting horse and coaxing it to start off back down the way they had come.

The return trip was taken at a considerably slower pace.

* * *

Dee leapt straight from the dirt path onto the house's porch, bypassing the steps beneath her altogether in her haste.

"Ron?" she called for her son hysterically as she exploded through the shack's door.

The widow scanned the front room with a concern that had finally been allowed to burst forth now that she was free of company. Her eyes darted from the chairs to the stove to the sofa to the bookcase in rapid succession before coming to an unsatisfied, worried rest on one of the doors on the far wall.

It led to the bedroom and, unlike its twin, it was closed.

"Ron?" Dee cried once more, this time quieter and with a voice that was perhaps even more fearful. The widow walked towards the shut door with gradually slowing, dread-filled steps.

It was as if she was unsure whether or not she wanted to know what was in the next room - as if she had not yet decided if she could bear the possibility that lay before her.

With every unanswered call, the terror which had been building within Dee ever since she had felt the castle quake beneath her three nights before grew heavier around her. Before, it had been but an irrational scenario in her mind - surely a construction of her isolated confinement - however, upon seeing the empty room, the mother's worries had become real, somehow palpable in the dusty air.

"Ron?" Dee attempted one last time upon reaching the door.

Again, there was no response.

The woman took a deep, shuddering breath. She turned the knob and pushed.

The bedroom beyond was just as empty as the rest of the house.

"Please no," Dee whispered harshly, but no one would have heard her plea even if she had shouted it.

She was alone.

The widow's eyes were drawn to her son's bed in the back of the room, illuminated most by the sunlight which streamed in through an undraped window beside it.

Dee noticed that it had been made since she had left for the festival; its pale sheets tucked into the frame neatly and its two accompanying pillows arranged perfectly where the covers left off. In the center of the arrangement laid a yellowed piece of paper. It was torn on one side, as if it had been ripped from a small book.

The widow stumbled towards the bed in a daze, tears dropping from her face and mixing with the thick dust on the ground.

Dee picked the page up with uncontrollably shaking hands and began to read.

* * *

_In the form of the Knight, the Dark Mage stood above his victims in the hall, watching each of the scorched, dead faces with a hateful contempt as he laughed:_

_"You thought that you could teach me," he laughed, watching his Mentor._

_"You thought that you could deceive me," he laughed, watching his Wife._

_"And you thought that you could lead me," he laughed, watching his King._

_"I have more power than the three of you combined," the Dark Mage said. He looked proudly to the magical flames which covered the walls of the room around him. "I have more power than one-hundred Men, one-thousand Men! I have more power than all who would stand against me!"_

_And the Dark Mage was so lost in his own praise that he did not notice the fire begin to creep across the floor in his direction. He felt pain as the flames met his feet._

_"How?" the Dark Mage shouted, jumping quickly away from the fire and into another. "I cannot be hurt by my own magic!"_

_The hall, which had been completely overrun by the flames, began to collapse around the Dark Mage and his three victims._

_The relentless flames attacked the Dark Mage's host as they had been ordered to attack._

_"No!" the Dark Mage shouted from within the Knight. "It is my magic! I cannot be hurt!"_

_But the Dark Mage was trapped within the body of the Knight, still, and thus he could be hurt. Fire burned at Daniel's mortal skin._

_The Knight was consumed by the magic which he had been powerless to unleash, and the Dark Mage, too, was devoured by his own flames._


	12. Chapter 12

Upon entering the sparse tree line that marked the border between the Valley of the Living Rock and the Northern Range, Kristoff found himself at least beginning to appreciate the mandated overnight nature of his 'diplomatic' trip.

He had not returned to the Valley for nearly a week by then (on account of official duties and later the catastrophic festival) and thus was quite relieved to be back among the gentle gorges and familiar geysers of steam. It had never quite occurred to him during his extended stay in Arendelle proper just how much he had missed the warmth of the trolls' grounds.

While spending time with Anna was a definite advantage of civilized life, Kristoff was undoubtedly a man of the wild. As the humid air thickened around the ice master, his muscles relaxed fully for the first time in what felt like forever and he finally managed to lay back in his gifted sled.

He was home.

The wheeled sled arrived at the troll's dwelling around noon. Sven's pace slowed considerably as he emerged onto the flat, circular terrain that served as a sort of all-purpose meeting area for the creatures, primarily because it was difficult for the reindeer to find anywhere to walk at all.

The expanse of dirt was swirling with scurrying masses of stone and moss - Kristoff's family preparing for his arrival. One of the younger trolls had seen the ice master on the edge of the surrounding forest and hurried back to organize the surprise, sending the community into hysteria as they tried to put together a feast for the human's grand return.

Off to one side, part of the camp was dedicated to cooking in large pots of conveniently-shaped stone. On the opposite end of the space, a group of the larger trolls tossed multicolored slabs around to each other before planting them into depressions in the ground in a unified rhythm, slowly building up a low, kaleidoscopic dining table. The little ones ran completed dishes from one half of the chaos to the other, only minimally spilling the contents as they deposited them onto the bar.

Sven was finally forced to come to an uncomfortable stop at the edge of the dense flow of moving rocks, unable to proceed. The trolls were so intent on their respective tasks that it took some time for them to even notice Kristoff at all.

Recognition finally came in the form of the same youth who had seen the ice master at the tree line not too long before. The small troll almost dropped the bowl he was carrying as he again spotted the man and shouted uncertainly.

"Um, Kristoff?"

Despite the nervousness in the small voice, the call cut through the chaos with a clear, tinny ring.

The entire Valley seemed to freeze at once as hundreds of rock-encrusted eyes looked up from their work.

And then the chorus began.

"Kristoff!"

"I'm almost done with the fifth batch of soup, let me just finish right up."

"We missed you, Kristoff!"

"Make a big seat for him - the biggest, right at the head of the table."

"It's so nice to see you again!"

"It's good to see you all, too," the ice master grinned back at his family. He climbed down from his seat at the front of the sled and started work on Sven's harness. While most of the older trolls continued their preparations, a wave of smaller rocks arrived at Kristoff's feet, excitedly waving their hands upwards to the bright midday sun.

After he had finally released the animal, the little ones began bouncing up onto both the mountain man and the excited reindeer two at a time. Miniscule hands clutched wherever they could, hugging on to the ice master and deliverer lovingly.

"You've been gone _forever_!" one of the tiny trolls said, attached to Kristoff's lower back.

"We thought you might've forgotten about us!" a squeaky voice added from one of Sven's legs.

"Of course I wouldn't forget about you," Kristoff said, wobbling slightly under the extra weight. "What's all of this?" he gestured as best as he could towards the rapidly assembling banquet before him.

"Feast!" a little one said simply at the ice master's feet.

"Ridgy saw you coming," another clarified. "We wanted to surprise you."

"Sven was too fast!" a loving declaration came from the reindeer's back.

"I sure could use a feast right about now," Kristoff replied happily. He gently shook his limbs and the trolls reluctantly jumped off of him and to the ground, looking back up expectantly. "I've got some food from Anna that we can add. It's in the trunk. Will you all help me get it?"

The little ones giggled, chanting, "Anna," joyfully as they skipped around the sled and set about unloading the packages.

Kristoff had only just turned to join them when he was interrupted by a stern tone against his back.

"Well _you've_ been gone a while."

"I know, I know!" Kristoff cried an excuse, whirling around and kneeling in one swift motion to hug the female troll who had approached. Bulda returned his embrace, though her serious voice only continued closer to her adoptive son's ear.

"We were worried sick about you, Kristoff," she said. "A whole week? You've never been away from the Valley for a whole week before."

The ice master remained kneeling after the hug to address his mother.

"I'm sorry," he appealed to her frown. "I would have come back sooner, but something came up."

"_Something_?" Bulda asked. Suddenly, the troll's hard lips turned ever so slightly upward. "Would this _something_ have _something_ to do with Princess Anna?"

Now it was Kristoff's turn to look worried. "Well, kind of, but listen-"

"Oh! I figured that you'd move into the castle eventually, but I never thought that it would be so soon," the troll cut her son off, full-on grinning by now.

"It's not that," the ice master rolled his eyes. "This is serious."

"More serious than moving in together?" Bulda asked. Somehow, her smile got wider. "You know, if you would have just listened to us the first time you would have saved so much on the wedding, but-"

"No, no, _no_," Kristoff shook his head violently. "I'm _not_ moving in, we're _not_ getting married," the ice master's voice grew hushed as he leaned in closer to his mother and tried to express the true importance of his visit. "I'm here on a mission for Anna. Something bad happened. Something really bad."

All signs of playful excitement were gone from Bulda's face in an instant. "What's wrong?" she demanded in a whisper.

Kristoff looked around cautiously to make sure that no one else could hear. He waited for a few smaller trolls lugging a carton of assorted fruit to pass before he spoke.

"Arendelle Castle has been attacked," the ice master said gravely. "It was some guy calling himself the Dark Mage of the Western Isles."

"The Dark Mage?" Bulda repeated in utter confusion. "I... I thought that he was only in the legends."

"So did everyone else," Kristoff said. "But he's real, alright. I saw him myself..." he trailed off, his mind for a moment wandering to memories of the cloaked man atop the stage. "Anna thought that Grand Pabbie might know something. Where is he?"

"He's napping before the feast," Bulda explained quietly. "You'll have to wait until after to talk to him in private."

"Right."

"Um, Kristoff?" a miniscule voice peeped up from the ice master's side. Both mother and son looked over to see a young, embarrassed-looking troll standing nearby.

"Oh, I didn't see you there, Ridgy," Kristoff cheerfully greeted the short creature, no taller than the lowered waist of his kneel. "I hear you saw me earlier, though. Thanks for letting everyone know I was coming in."

"No problem," the tiny youth whispered bashfully.

"What's up?"

Ridgy rubbed his sides with each hand and looked to the ground. "Well, um, we... We can't get some of the boxes out of the trunk. They're, um, they're too heavy," he went on apprehensively. "The others sent me to tell you. Since I'm the, um, I'm the Messenger."

"The Messenger?"

"Ridgy became Grand Pabbie's assistant the other day," Bulda piped up from the side. "Grand Pabbie calls him the Messenger."

"Sounds prestigious," Kristoff cracked a smile as his mother finished and the young troll looked back up at him nervously. "I think I can help you out with those boxes."

"I'll go and wake Grand Pabbie," Bulda offered. "The food should be ready before too long."

"Great," the ice master gave his mother a reassuring, grateful nod as he stood. "Thank you," he said, and she returned his gesture.

Bulda scurried back into the crowd of adults, soon becoming invisible in the mess of stone and moss.

"Well," Kristoff turned back to the younger troll beside him. "Let's go and get those last few boxes, then?"

"Okay," Ridgy smiled weakly and led the way to the back of the sled with tiny, wobbly, unsure steps.

The ice master did not have to try very hard to keep up.

* * *

In thirty minutes time, the feast had begun in earnest. The cobbled dining table had been filled with a mixture of traditional troll fare and the gifts brought from the castle in typical beautifully unorganized fashion. The creatures huddled around the banquet eyed the food in hungry excitement from their dirt mound perches.

At the head of the table, Kristoff sat uncomfortably on his own miniature hill. Sven stood behind him, a furry head sticking out just over his friend's shoulder. To the ice master's left, a recently awakened Grand Pabbie reclined on a similarly massive throne; to his right, Bulda and Cliff waited expectantly for their son to dig in.

In fact, Kristoff looked around the long table and noticed that most of its occupants were staring at him in anticipation.

"Go on," Bulda urged.

"You're waiting for me?"

"Of course," Cliff answered matter-of-factly. "You're the guest of honor."

"Guest?" Kristoff raised an eyebrow and looked around. The perimeter of the table shook with eager nods. "Of honor?" his voice was met with another grand rustling.

"A representative of the royal family will not be disrespected," Grand Pabbie pitched in from the side with a concealed yawn. Opposite the wise troll at the table, Bulda shifted her weight proudly.

Perhaps, Kristoff thought, he should have been a bit more careful in telling his mother of the nature of his visit. She _did_ tend to exaggerate.

"Oh, no, I'm not really-"

"That said," Grand Pabbie added with a wry grin and a wink, "I am quite hungry. What would you like to try first?"

Kristoff was unsure of how he felt about being a guest of honor, but he definitely knew that he felt uncomfortable under his entire family's impatient gazes. He took a scoop of something that looked edible enough - a sausage stew creation, maybe - with his stone spoon and slurped it down quickly.

"Yum," he said.

The table erupted. Plates were passed across its surface in unorganized squiggles, changing anxious hands several times before being emptied by the rough scrapes of rocky utensils. Competitive shouts came from every troll at the same time, asking for this or that to be passed - or rather tossed - and cheerfully condemning their neighbors for their poor manners.

The bowl of sausage stew was immediately snatched from right in front of Kristoff. Indeed, it seemed that his elite status had been forgotten just as soon as it had been bestowed upon him, but the ice master could not help but laugh as he struggled to get a few bites off of the next plate in the rotation.

He would not want it any other way.

* * *

The trolls' meal lasted for about an hour. By the time it was finished, the table had already begun to be dissembled by the quicker eaters to make room for dancing. Gradually, more and more heavy, full creatures hauled their share of rocks into the nearby woods and joined in the customary after-lunch celebration.

Soon enough, Kristoff was left alone with Pabbie at a considerably shrunken bar. The two of them watched the jovial display for a few minutes before the wise troll finally spoke up.

"Bulda said that Princess Anna sent you to speak with me," he said, his voice all but drowned out by the singing and movement of the merry carnival nearby.

"Huh?" Kristoff asked, remaining for a moment distracted by the other trolls. Once his lagging mind had finally processed the words, he turned slightly in the direction of the leader. "Oh, right, yeah. I need to talk to you," the ice master said, but his eyes were still continually drawn to the dancing rocks to his right.

Grand Pabbie puffed out his lower lip in a stifled laugh. "Perhaps we should go somewhere more private," he suggested. "Follow me. You too, Messenger."

"Messenger?" Kristoff asked as he shakily stood. Hearing his title twice, Ridgy bounced out from a crevice under the table that only he could have ever fit into and stood at his mentor's side. "Oh. Nice hiding spot."

The small troll gave his sides a thoughtful rub in response.

Grand Pabbie led his assistant and the ice master away from the central valley and up a few sharp inclines towards where the trolls had made their formal homes. Earthen huts sprouted up from the ground around them - some only tall enough to reach Kristoff's chest, others shorter - as they followed a twisted path to the back of the village.

At the end of the trail, Grand Pabbie's own home towered above the others, a stone dome draped with delicate moss weavings and decorated by several finely carved designs and windows. The dwelling looked at the same time ancient and supremely relevant; weathered and important.

Kristoff only had to duck slightly to enter the one-room establishment.

Despite its outward appearance, the hut was little more than a great meeting hall. Other than the tomes pushed tight against the walls in messy stacks and a small burrow to the side which was assumedly Grand Pabbie's sleeping arrangement, there were no signs that anyone actually lived there at all.

Ahead of the ice master, the two trolls sat down near the center of the room and faced inwards. Kristoff joined them on the packed dirt floor.

"This should be better," Grand Pabbie said in his peculiar cheerful yet serious tone.

"Yeah," Kristoff replied. "We're alright to talk now?" he glanced uneasily to the small troll sitting to the side and then back to his elder.

"The Messenger is to be trusted," Grand Pabbie assured the ice master. "Do not worry."

"I don't mean that," Kristoff looked again to the youth with a blush of embarrassment. "It's not that I don't trust you, it's just," he turned back to Grand Pabbie, "this is grown-up talk."

"The Messenger is also to be respected," the wise troll declared. He exchanged a slight, knowing smile with his assistant before broadening his lips and addressing the ice master again directly. "In any case, you are but a child yourself, Kristoff."

Kristoff's face was a deep red and his eyes had fallen to the earth between them in meeting circle. "Sorry, Ridgy," he said pitifully.

"It matters not," Grand Pabbie waved his hand in dismissal of the teasing. "You have a message from Princess Anna."

"Yes," the ice master looked back up and stammered, trying to ignore the burning in his cheeks. "Arendelle Castle was attacked four days ago by a man calling himself the Dark Mage of the Western Isles - like the one from the stories."

Grand Pabbie's eyes closed in consideration.

"He attacked on the night of that festival that I told you about last time I was home," Kristoff continued. "Anna thought that you might be able to help us figure out what he was doing there."

"I see."

"He had magic, Grand Pabbie," Kristoff hissed, but the wise troll remained concentrated and motionless. "_Real_ magic. I saw it myself. He was throwing fireballs at the castle. He even set the entire queen's wing on fire."

"Is Queen Elsa alright?" Grand Pabbie asked, whispering out of a focused trance.

The ice master hesitated. "She tried to fight him, but he set off this huge explosion in the courtyard," he said, unable to resist looking down briefly at Ridgy's concerned expression as he made the announcement. "She's still healing."

Grand Pabbie nodded. He paused, a silent revelation crossing his mind. "And the Dark Mage was killed in this explosion, was he not?"

Kristoff pulled his head back in surprise. "How did you know that?"

"I see," the wise troll mumbled to himself. "Very interesting. Very interesting, indeed."

"What is?" Kristoff asked hopefully.

Grand Pabbie finally opened his eyes, revealing their learned depths to his audience.

"_Daniel and the Dark Mage_," he declared. "The Dark Mage's first appearance in the texts. You have heard of it, have you not?"

"Uh, I think so," Kristoff lied through gritted teeth and a returned blush. Honestly, the title sounded familiar - perhaps it was something Bulda had read to him as a child - but the ice master could not quite remember. "I mean, maybe," he added for safety.

Grand Pabbie chuckled lightly and gestured over to a corner of his home. At once, Ridgy jumped up and scampered over to the indicated wall. He rifled through books placed along the dirt and quickly found one to be satisfactory. Just as quickly as he had left, the tiny troll returned to the center of the room holding in front of him a volume almost as big as himself. He dropped it to the ground with a grunt and a thud.

The letters on the tome's face were unreadable to the ice master - relics of times and places long past much like the ancient work which they presided over. The runes seemed to be placed at random around an abstract collection of equally mysterious shapes that, to Kristoff, looked like it could just as easily represent a rising sun or a plate of eggs. Regardless of its odd cover, the book looked like it could fall apart at any moment - fragile under even the still quiet of the troll leader's home.

"A storybook from my youth," Grand Pabbie explained. He scooted closer and started flipping through the anthology's contents carefully. Finally, the wise troll arrived on faded illustration subtitled by some obscure runes. "Here it is. _Daniel and the Dark Mage_," he recited, leafing through the next few pages carefully and scanning the story within.

"Remind me what it's about again?" Kristoff prompted awkwardly.

Grand Pabbie did not look up from his reading as he spoke. "It tells of a knight corrupted by the Dark Mage's magic. I always thought that it was only a children's tale - some things are before even my time, you see, so I merely assumed..." he trailed off as he rapidly progressed through the story. Within moments, he had turned the page a few more times and finished. The wise troll finally looked up with an inquiry. "You say that you saw the Dark Mage yourself?"

Kristoff nodded, memories of the cloaked figure and roaring flames flashing through his mind for the umpteenth time in that day alone.

"I see," Grand Pabbie murmured, back to his thoughts. "He is supposed to have died at the end of the story, though I suppose that this is only the first tale of many written of his exploits in any case," he resolved. "There are many similarities."

"There are?"

"Yes," Grand Pabbie confirmed. "The fire magic, the castle attack, the mage's harm by his own hand - all elements of the story, all the same. Tell me, did you ever see the Dark Mage's face?"

"No, he was wearing this big robe," Kristoff answered, confused by the question. "It covered his whole body. Why?"

Grand Pabbie's forehead descended into illogical wrinkles of worry. "Another troubling similarity," he said. "In the legend, it is not the Dark Mage himself who attacks the kingdom, but his host - the knight I spoke of before, cloaked, only possessed by the mage."

It took a few seconds for the ice master to process what had been said. "You're saying that the Dark Mage at the castle could have just been someone else who was _possessed_?"

"If the similarities continue," Grand Pabbie nodded vaguely. For the first time in his life, Kristoff caught the wise troll looking unsure. "There is no doubt that he died in the explosion?"

"They found remains," the ice master whispered, trying unsuccessfully to hide the fact from a now-shaking Ridgy below.

"The Dark Mage himself cannot be hurt by his own powers, you see," Grand Pabbie mumbled. "At least not outside of a mortal body. He must have had another host. It could have been anyone, in theory."

"If he was just possessing someone, then..." the ice master choked out in disbelief. "Does that mean he could come back again?"

Grand Pabbie's ensuing frown was one of defeat - an expression even more unfitting of the leader of the trolls.

"I have no knowledge other than what I have already told you," he confessed. "Again, I thought that the Dark Mage was merely a legend, I-"

"But what if he can?" the ice master's mouth hung open after his rapid speech.

To the side, Ridgy gasped in response to the improper display, but in the heat of the moment Kristoff did not care.

The mountain man's cheeks were colored now not with embarrassment but a different emotion entirely - some panicked cocktail of fear and frustration. Needless to say, the dread of being trapped in a slowly burning castle was fresh in his mind. "We have to do something before that happens! We have to figure out who that guy was - we have to figure out why he was there!"

Grand Pabbie let the loud echoes in the room settle themselves. As his own shouts faded from his ears, Kristoff knew that his surrogate grandfather had no power to help him.

Only after the ice master's shoulders had dropped in ashamed realization did the old troll speak again. "If Queen Elsa is still recovering, I can most likely assist in that," he changed the subject with a soothing tone. "Describe her injuries."

"The doctor said that the burns cover her entire body, but they'll heal soon," the ice master replied somberly. "Her right leg is broken."

"I see," Grand Pabbie said, quickly running through various possible cures in his head. Ridgy looked up to his mentor instinctively. "Crushed nuts from the mountainside should soothe the burns well enough. We'll need a golden pedal to heal the leg, however."

The young troll barely murmured in agreement before rising from his spot on the ground and dashing out of the hut. Ridgy left a modest (though quite impressive given his size) haze of dust in his wake.

"He will be back by morning," Grand Pabbie commented once his assistant had left. "Then, at least, you can return to Princess Anna with _some_ good news."

Kristoff did not respond for a while, staring down at the still-open book between him and the old troll.

"I'm sorry for yelling. I... I wanted to go back knowing who the Dark Mage was," he admitted the obvious pitifully to the exposed pages. "Anna's just been going through a lot lately - nothing she can't handle, I guess, but still... I wanted to be able to help for once."

"For once?" Grand Pabbie asked carefully.

"She's had to run the kingdom all by herself since the queen got hurt," Kristoff explained. "Royal dealings aren't exactly included in my area of expertise."

Grand Pabbie's smile was a sad ghost of its usual self. The ice master's was non-existent.

"And then there's this thing between them that she keeps talking about," Kristoff continued, surprising even himself with his candidness as he continued to watch the tome and let the words fall out of his mouth. "She's convinced that she can't understand her for some reason. She said that they 'see things differently' or something. I don't really get it myself and so I-"

"What did you say?" Grand Pabbie's voice sounded odd to the ice master when he interrupted - worried and hopeful at the same time. Kristoff's head jerked up in surprise to find the wise troll's brow illogically wrinkled in a nigh-unreadable fashion.

"I just don't really, uh, get what she means, so-"

"No, before that," Grand Pabbie stopped him again, sweeping his short arms through the air. "What did _Princess Anna_ say?"

"Oh, she said it just like that - 'I see things differently than her'," Kristoff recalled their conversation in the library. "Weird, huh? I didn't think it sounded like Anna, either."

The shallow canyons on Grand Pabbie's forehead deepened. "I thought that this day may come," he whispered, almost speaking to himself before raising his voice to address the ice master properly as a half-smile stole across his lips. "Perhaps there is some other way that I may be able to assist you after all."

"What is it?" Kristoff was once again hopelessly confused.

"The sisters of Arendelle do see things differently, in a sense," the wise troll hinted cryptically. "They view the past through separate lenses, if you will. You know that more than most, Kristoff."

"I do?" the ice master asked. His uncertainty seemed to grow in proportion to Grand Pabbie's grin.

"You do remember the first time that you came to the Valley, do you not?"

How could Kristoff have forgotten? He had arrived with Sven late one night after following the royal family through the forest and been spontaneously adopted on sight. Bulda had been hiding when they met - watching as Grand Pabbie discussed with the royals the wrapped child that they had brought.

Kristoff remembered overhearing that the young princess had been struck by her sister's magic. He remembered gazing on in wonder as the troll's magical cure descended into the girl's forehead.

"That's why she sees things differently," the ice master stated breathlessly. "You removed her memories."

"Well, yes, but not exactly," Grand Pabbie said. Despite the gravity of Kristoff's accusations and the vagueness of his own speech, the old troll was still smiling.

"Huh?"

"Considering the danger that Princess Anna's temptation proved, I chose to suppress her memories of the magic until such a time that there was no longer the potential for... contagious recklessness," Grand Pabbie continued, his eyes distant but twinkling. "Particularly with Queen Elsa's control over her powers, I doubt the princess's proclivity for fun will be likely to endanger anyone now. You see, I only shielded the memories to be safe - nothing more."

Kristoff tried to piece it all together in his head and, for the first time, found relative success. "So her real memories are still there?"

"Yes. The magic distorting the images need only be removed. After that, Princess Anna will remember everything," Grand Pabbie took a breath. "Perhaps once the past is clear, the present will follow suit. Our viewpoints are but the sum of our memories, after all," the old troll muttered. "With the state of the princess's, it is unsurprising that she cannot see eye-to-eye with her sister."

"What do we have to do?" Kristoff asked eagerly.

"I should be able to handle the magic," Grand Pabbie replied. "I will need to see Princess Anna personally, of course. Are you able to bring her here?"

"It might take some convincing," Kristoff said, "but I have a feeling that after she hears what you just told me she won't be _too_ stubborn about staying at the castle. Then again, you never really know with her."

The ice master and his grandfather exchanged a warm chuckle in the filtered afternoon light of the hut.

"I am sure that you will try your best in any case," Grand Pabbie tilted his head forward and squinted his eyes gleefully.

"Thanks, Grand Pabbie."

The old troll dismissed the recognition with a wave of his stone hand as he rose from the dirt and started hobbling over to the front door, leaving the storybook open on the ground behind him.

"Come now," Grand Pabbie told the ice master over his mossy shoulder once they had reemerged onto the village path. Kristoff followed him in an awkward crouch out of the dwelling. "There should still be a few places at the dance."

"It's been over an hour," the ice master looked up at the west-bound sun.

"Surely they haven't stopped without the appearance of the guest of honor," Grand Pabbie teased in response, but Kristoff did not join him in the resultant laughter.

"I hope you don't really think like that," the ice master said quietly. "You know I'm not a guest, right? You're my family, and this is my home. That's never going to change, okay?"

Only hints of the wise troll's chortling remained.

"Do not worry, Kristoff," Grand Pabbie said. "There may come a time when you leave the Valley, but I think we all know that that day is not today. Today, you may be our guest of honor only in jest," he paused, looking up sideways to make warm eye contact with the ice master as they walked. "Now we had better sped things along. We wouldn't want to miss more than we already have."

Kristoff grinned instantaneously, soothed already by the reassuring gaze.

"If you insist!"

The mountain man suddenly scooped his grandfather off of the crowd with an arced arm and went barreling down the path, the old troll held securely against his chest.

Grand Pabbie chuckled heartily as the wind buffeted his face. "That's more like it!" he called.


	13. Chapter 13

The infirmary was quiet save for labored breathing. Under the watchful eyes of Anna and Kai, Elsa had restlessly slumbered through lunch and into the early afternoon.

Not even when Martin reentered the infirmary did Elsa awake - not that there were any words exchanged once he did. Anna merely gave the guardsman an understanding nod and he was at back against his wall dutifully.

The princess did not ask how his mission had gone. She did not really want to know, anyway - she was already dreading talking about the issue of Mrs. Daleon with Elsa again later.

Following Martin's return, Elsa would occasionally twitch and groan in slight pain, however her eyes never opened and her faint snores never ceased. Despite her excessive rest over the past several days, it did not seem to any of the queen's guardians that she would be waking up anytime soon.

In the meantime, Anna tried (with varying degrees of success) to decipher the reports which the queen had requested as reading materials. It was just after three and the princess was struggling through something about the kingdom's recent economic gains when a polite cough from Kai - in the back of the room doing some reading of his own - prompted her to finally rise from the visitors' chair.

Anna had been hoping to be able to talk to Elsa before having to leave for the meeting with Ambassador Balan, but she did not have the heart to wake her resting sister. Reluctantly, the princess left the infirmary and went to her bedroom to get ready.

It took twenty minutes for the servants to properly tame Anna's unruly mess of hair, which had backslid to its fully wild state over the course of the day. Ten more were dedicated to selecting a dress - ironically, a rather simple, blue affair was settled upon unanimously - and, by the time the maids had left and Anna gave herself a final look-over in her bedroom mirror, the princess looked and felt presentable for the first time since the festival.

In fact, Anna was quite glad to see that, between the fine braids and plain frock, she would almost resemble a red-haired Elsa for her appointment.

She wondered if looking like the queen would help her act like her, too.

"Not likely," Anna teased her reflection.

Of course, the princess would _try_ to muster up every ounce of regality she had, however she was setting her expectations low as far as actually _dealing_ with the ambassador went. The primary focus of the afternoon would be maintaining propriety through the dinner - any Elsa-esque political maneuvers were _not_ on the princess's agenda.

"Princess Anna?" a servant appeared at the bedroom door.

"Yes?"

"Ambassador Balan has sent for you."

"That's surprising," Anna muttered to herself sarcastically. She checked the clock on her vanity to see that she was only four minutes late. It seemed that the ambassador had not lost his eagerness over lunch.

"He awaits your presence in the dining hall."

"Thank you," Anna looked to the door and spoke openly, dismissing the messenger with a smile and a slight nod.

Once the servant had left down the hallway in the direction of the kitchen, the princess turned back to the mirror, adjusted an ever-rebellious strand of hair in a braid, and rehearsed:

"I'm sorry, but I simply _cannot_ make a decision without my sister present," Anna tilted her head downwards in a polite way that she had picked up from watching Elsa. "Perhaps you would like to arrange a meeting with her once she has made a full recovery?"

The princess held her formal pose for as long as she could, but her eventual descent into laughter was inevitable.

Even though she thought it all sounded ridiculous, it would have to do.

Anna glanced at the clock to see that she was now seven minutes late. By then, the princess guessed, the ambassador was probably concerned for her welfare, so she rose from her seat in front of the vanity and started for the door.

Worrying the anxious man sick probably would _not_ be the best for international relations, but that did not keep Anna from smirking at the thought as she exited her bedroom.

* * *

The horse below Dee whined, stepping off of the dirt and onto the cobbled roads of the town. It was obviously unaccustomed to such long journeys, but its rider urged it forward all the same.

"Almost there," the widow whispered to her mount. She peered out of her light, tan travelling cloak's hood to see Arendelle, taking in the seaside streets for the second time that day.

Despite having departed quite early in the morning and now returned in the prime hours of the afternoon, the town looked much the same to the woman. The docks held motionless ships and the castle bridge motionless guards. Only two or three commoners could be seen out in the square, meandering about the few open shops for a while before eventually stealing into their unusually closed doors and leaving the town around the visitor completely deserted.

There seemed to be a somber, uncertain haze over Arendelle - a fear brought on by the Dark Mage's attack that kept the town quiet, still, and cowering.

Dee and her steed proceeded through the empty town square like anomalies before arriving at the bridge that led to the castle.

"Halt!" one of the two guardsman at its mouth held his hand up at the approach. His hair was gray and his voice stern. "State your business."

"I seek an audience with Queen Elsa," Dee stated. She dismounted (much to the tired horse's relief) and stood before the addressed guard at her full height.

The widow pulled her cloak's gossamer hood down, revealing her face. Wrinkled shadows of former tears streaked their way down her cheeks, almost invisible after hours of settling.

"Mrs. Daleon?" the second guardsman burst out in recognition. It was Isaac - now at his proper post and wide awake in anticipation of his shift's impending end.

"_The assassin_?" the older man asked incredulously. "I thought that kid who saved Princess Anna was supposed to have escorted you back to the hills where you belong."

"He did," Dee nodded, half in acknowledgement of Isaac's familiar face and half in simple affirmation. Again, the woman seemed changed to the younger guardsman - not the hysterical apologizer of their first meeting nor the silent prisoner of that morning, but a completely different beast altogether. She appeared purposeful, almost obstinate in her very tone. "I return, however, to see Queen Elsa."

The gruff guardsman opposite the widow sneered, his brow furrowing deeply.

"What is this, then? Only just pardoned of an attempt on the queen's life and you're already back for another round?" the man demanded. He balled his hands into fists at his sides, but Dee did not so much as flinch. "Maybe I should just put you back in that cell right now."

"I only wish to speak to-"

"She's not going to hurt Queen Elsa," Isaac interrupted the woman on her behalf, sensing trouble in his company's seemingly mutual stubbornness. He looked to his fellow guardsman, who glanced back in puzzlement. They both turned again to the widow after a short, silent exchange. "Right, Mrs. Daleon? Like you told me the other night."

"Yes," Dee confirmed. "You can search me - I carry no weapon. I just want to talk to Queen Elsa. I _must_ talk to Queen Elsa."

Isaac shifted uncomfortably, but nonetheless tried to speak before his fellow watchman came up with another confrontational retort. "I don't think now is the best time for your apology, Mrs. Daleon," he spat out. "The queen isn't well. I know you were in the dungeon, but during the festival-"

"I know about the attack and the queen's injuries," Dee cut in. "I hope you didn't think that I was oblivious to your conversation this morning just because I was resting."

"Oh," Isaac remembered his talk with Martin hours before, "right."

"In any case, I already apologized to Queen Elsa on the night of the festival," Dee divulged. "I'm not here for that," she turned to the older man, "but I'm not here as a threat, either. I have information for the queen."

"Information?" he scoffed. "A likely story. I think that's about enough-"

"It's information regarding the Dark Mage."

The surly guardsman went silent.

"What?" Isaac blurted out. "What is it?"

"I request an audience with Queen Elsa," Dee answered simply.

Isaac remembered Princess Anna's words from that very morning. She had said that Queen Elsa wished to be 'informed about everything immediately'. The queen would surely want to hear what Dee had to say, and quite possibly be very pleased with whomever had brought the widow to her attention. The guardsman saw his chance at absolute redemption standing before him.

Isaac watched the widow's expression for any hint that something was off, but he found none. She did not look dangerous in the slightest.

Meanwhile, the older man had finally pushed aside his surprise to make way for the reemergence of anger.

"Now listen here, you had better not be concealing-"

"Let me take her to Queen Elsa," Isaac stopped his peer before he could begin his tirade.

"What?" the enraged guardsman coughed out.

"My shift's over anyway," Isaac continued. "Let me take her. Martin said that Queen Elsa woke up this morning. If Mrs. Daleon really knows something that we don't about the Dark Mage, then she will want to hear it."

The men faced each other and a negotiation of raised eyebrows and subtle mouth movements commenced.

After a while, the older guardsman turned back to the widow in disgust, defeated.

"Put your arms out," he ordered. "I'm still searching you."

Dee complied with a satisfied look, standing tall as the man patted at the limbs beneath her cloak.

Isaac watched nervously and hoped that his faith in the woman had not been misplaced. His fears were realized when the austere guardsman's hand clapped down with an odd noise on the widow's hip.

"What's this?" the man clutched the thin, rectangular shape through the fabric.

"A book," Dee explained. Her right arm navigated the folds of her dress and pulled the object from her searcher's grasp from the inside. It reemerged from the cloak to display a small, unthreatening volume, not even large enough to conceal an extra page within its bindings. "Just a book."

The older guardsman snarled at the sight and went back to his task with a newfound roughness. He went over the widow twice before speaking again.

"Just a book," the man repeated lowly, taking two steps backward as Dee returned her luggage to her belt. "You can go. I would bet Queen Elsa will order you back to the dungeon on sight, anyway," he taunted the widow. Finally, he looked to his partner. "I'll take care of the horse. Don't take your eyes off of her."

Isaac nodded obediently.

Dee walked right past the two guardsman and started for the castle with a purposeful pace that the surprised young man quickly turned and tried to match.

* * *

Balan was standing just outside of the door to the dining hall upon Anna's arrival, predictably drumming his fingers against a felt pant leg in a rapid rhythm. The hefty man nearly jumped when he caught sight of the princess down the hall and a sincere (yet somehow false-looking) joy splashed across his face.

"Princess Anna!" he waved to her, at once reassuming his perfect posture. "I was beginning to worry that you had fallen ill."

"Uh, no," Anna approached the imposing figure awkwardly, already failing in her attempt to remain professional. She had not expected her prediction to be correct. The ambassador's propriety-masked oddness never failed to disarm her. "Sorry, I was just running late. My hair."

"I see," Balan beamed, genuinely pleased to hear such a simple explanation. Anna arrived at the doorway and glanced at the man's scarred cheek for a moment before correcting herself in a hurry and meeting his gaze. "Dinner is ready to be served. Shall we go in?"

It was clear that the ambassador was legitimately waiting for a response.

"Sure," Anna answered quietly. She found herself humbled - not a common occurrence considering her intrinsic status.

Balan led the way into the dining hall. No doubt by his insistent order, the long room had been dressed for an occasion. The drapes were lowered enough to block out all natural brightness, leaving the deep glow of the trio of overhead chandeliers as the sole remaining light. Placemats covered the whole grand table as if in preparation for a huge feast, however Anna spied only two sets of silverware - twin plates set across from each other on the birch's far edge.

"I put us at the end so that we may have some privacy," Balan explained casually as they strolled to the other side of the room. "I hope you do not mind."

"Of course not," was all that Anna could manage.

Balan pulled out a chair for the princess before taking his own.

A servant was just behind the diners, fine wine and cups in hand. Anna noticed that his face was abnormally pale. He must have been talking to the ambassador prior to her arrival, then.

"Thank you, thank you," Balan said with a calculated cordiality as the drinks were poured. Before the poor waiter could escape, he added, "we're both very hungry."

"Yes, Ambassador Balan, right away."

The servant scurried back through a side door and Anna was left alone with the ambassador.

Neither of them said anything for a while. Anna tried hard not to stare at the scar. Aware of her struggle, Balan finally made the first move.

"My lucky chalice."

"Huh?"

The ambassador raised his respective cup into the air above his plate, tapping its golden rim with a thick finger. The goblet was quite the display - surely fancier and more expensive-looking than any drinking instrument that Anna had ever seen - with an intricate design and more than a few embedded gems. The jewels and the golden surface they laid upon twinkled in the dining hall's overhead light like they had for some reason been polished recently. Even the elegant, customary royal glass that the princess's wine resided in looked meager in comparison to the shining bowl.

"My lucky chalice," the ambassador repeated proudly. "Made by a group of the finest craftsmen of Geralde. I carry it with me everywhere I go, for you never know when a toast will need to be made," he shook the cup gently. "To our great kingdoms' time-honored partnership - may it ever continue under our young rulers."

Balan held his chalice out in anticipation and Anna scrambled to meet it with her own. Glass clicked against gold and each party took a tiny sip of their respective drink.

"How is the queen, by the way?" the ambassador licked a red stain off of his upper lip. "She seemed to be recovering quite well this morning."

"She's okay," Anna answered, loosening up slightly with the thought of her sister. "I only got to talk to her a little. I think she's still in a lot of pain-"

Two sets of rapid steps echoed through the hall. Wordless and careful to avoid eye contact with the ambassador, a duo of servants placed a bowl full of finely sliced and dressed cucumbers on each plate and then shuffled away as quickly as they had come.

"The famous Arendellien agurksalat," Balan introduced the dish. "I understand that it is one of your favorites?"

Anna nodded, eyes fixed desirously on the bowl. The princess certainly understood why agurksalat was one of the castle chef's most renowned creations. She had requested it to be made at each holiday since she was a child, though generally the understanding was that the cucumber salad's tastiness was reserved _solely_ for such occasions. It had never been served at any normal dinner.

"I took the liberty of asking the chef to put together a meal befitting of our meeting," Balan grinned self-importantly. "I expect you will be quite the fan of the other courses, as well."

"Thank... Thank you," Anna stammered. Suddenly, in the presence of the agurksalat, the princess's stomach growled. She had eaten little since the festival - in truth only whatever Kristoff or Kai managed to force down her throat - and indeed was expectedly ravenous coming into the dining hall.

The bowl in front of her beckoned to her, but Anna looked up, trying to hold onto her manners.

Balan gestured forward, noting the hunger in the young woman's eyes. "Please," he offered, his lips and the scar dancing coolly.

The princess started in on the vinegar-soaked cucumbers with delight, considering them even better than the ones from her last birthday. Balan joined her with a delicate bite before he proceeded with conversation.

"I do hope that the queen makes a full recovery soon," he said. "Is there any indication of when that may be?"

Anna tried her best to chew and swallow the latest mouthful. "The doctor said that the burns will stop hurting over the next couple of days or so," she recalled, already holding a reloaded fork just below her chin. "The leg is the real problem," the princess added sadly.

"Of course," Balan reflected the melancholy tone.

"Elsa will be fine, though," Anna reassured the both of them. "She's strong - she's always strong. She just needs some more rest, that's all."

Balan agreed with another taste from his chalice. "I'm inclined to believe you," he smiled, a dab of red returning to his lip as the scar twisted on his cheek. "I have heard from a few of the other ambassadors that Queen Elsa is no pushover, to be sure. I suppose that that resilience is not limited only to the diplomatic realm?"

The diners shared a laugh just as Anna stuffed the last bit of agurksalat into her mouth.

At once, Balan was tapping at his chalice with a silver knife, his rapid strikes echoing throughout the dining hall.

"Next course!" the ambassador called as if inconvenienced by some great incompetence on part of the wait staff.

"Oh, no, sorry," Anna quickly tried to stop him. She glanced down at the man's own barely touched bowl of cucumbers, blushing. "I ate too fast. I didn't mean to rush you."

Balan's jaw dropped. "Not at all, Princess Anna," he replied, surprised by even the notion of the apology. "It only seems that I am not as hungry as you are," his smile returned. "Do not worry yourself on my behalf."

The princess mirrored his expression, but still could not help feeling a bit guilty.

"In any case, there is plenty more on the way," Balan teased. Across the hall, the two familiar servants entered through the side door, each carrying a steaming bowl of soup. "As a matter of fact, here some of it _finally_ comes now."

* * *

Isaac knocked at the infirmary's entrance once he and the widow had arrived. He knew that it was probably unlocked - in fact, the door did not have a latch at all - but wished to remain cautious, growing uncertain of his choice to escort Dee to meet with Queen Elsa. As he hurriedly battered the wood, he tried to reassure himself.

He was delivering information about the Dark Mage. Queen Elsa would be grateful, not angry. She and Mrs. Daleon had already spoken on the night of the festival. Everything would be fine.

Inside of the sickroom, the guardsman's knocks were echoed and afforded the queen a sudden awakening. Her eyes opened and she groaned weakly in frustration of losing a pleasant dream.

"Sorry, Queen Elsa," Martin jumped up from his post with a start. Kai, too, dropped a report and rose from his seat on the other side of the room, at once at Elsa's bedside with a reserved cup of water.

The guardsman hurried to open the door. When he did, he was quite confused by what he saw.

"Hi," Isaac greeted his friend meekly.

"Who is it?" Elsa asked with a slight irritation in her voice once she had gulped down the water.

"Isaac," Martin breathed out a high breath, acknowledging the young man although his gaze was fixed entirely on the widow beside him. "It's Isaac and Mrs. Daleon."

"Mrs. Daleon?" Elsa's muscles tensed in painful instinct. "I thought I told you to take her home."

"I thought I did," Martin squeaked, dumbfounded.

"I do not come here as a prisoner," Dee called into the infirmary from the hallway.

"She knows something about the Dark Mage," Isaac scrambled to explain, sensing an impending muteness rising within him. "She says she'll only tell Queen Elsa in person."

"May I come in?" Dee followed up. She returned Martin's confused stare, but addressed the queen herself.

"Of course, of course," Elsa croaked. She struggled on account of the bandages to reposition herself into a pseudo-sitting position on the bed. After a failed attempt, Kai carefully helped the top of her back onto the pillow. "Mrs. Daleon is an acquaintance, Martin. Let her in."

"Yes, Queen Elsa," the guardsman said uncomfortably and shuffled aside after a long hesitation.

Dee entered the room confidently, taking an immediate seat at the visitors' chair beside the queen's bed and right next to the still-standing Kai. Even though he was not invited, Isaac followed the widow inside, sharing a brief and silent conversation with the other guardsman before the two took their own protective places behind the chair.

"I'm sorry that you were not released before this morning," Elsa began with a sickly sorrow. "I was unable to-"

"I understand," the widow dismissed the apology with an almost inappropriate sternness that everyone in the room save for the queen herself took as offensive. "Queen Elsa, I need to tell you something far more important than any of that," she continued gravely. "Are you well enough to listen?"

* * *

In the dining hall, the meal proceeded at a rapid pace. Anna's hunger seemed to know no bounds, and the fact that she was being tempted by course after course of her favorite foods only made matters worse. Despite her speed, there was always another dish to be brought at the call of the ambassador's tinny knife.

Although her mouth was for the most part busied by chewing, the princess found her continuing casual conversation with Balan pleasurable enough. Anna did think it strange that the ambassador had been so insistent upon calling her to discuss the weather over fine fisksuppe, but she awkwardly said nothing in the face of the man's enthusiastic predictions of rain.

In essence, the supposed diplomatic meeting boiled down to idle musings from Balan as Anna tried to remain politely listening while wolfing down the newest treat from the chef. Admittedly, she was warming up to the ambassador's irregularities.

"-and so I have been afraid of birds ever since," Balan finished an anecdote and poked at his barely-touched sixth-course lamb with a fork. On the other side of the table, Anna, who had already long finished, giggled.

"Afraid?" she teased. "You don't really strike me as the type."

"To be afraid of birds?"

"To be afraid at all," Anna corrected, looking over the man's broad, confident pose in his seat.

"Oh," Balan's face fell for an indiscernible moment as he took longer than usual to process the compliment. Finally, after what was only a mere second for the princess, the unexpected crack was repaired and the ambassador calculated an appropriate response. "Birds can be quite vicious," he disclosed with a perfect lilt, "I assure you."

"Nothing you couldn't handle," Anna fired back and together they laughed the topic into obscurity.

It was not long before Balan had looked down and hastily picked up his knife again.

"My apologies, Princess Anna," he excused himself. "I did not notice that you were finished. Once more, I am unable to match your appetite-"

Anna put her hands out above the table gently to stop the man before his knife struck the chalice.

"No need to rush," she said. The princess watched as the ambassador shook his head and started to say something, but was quick to cut him off again. She sensed the break in their casual conversation and figured it would be as good of a time as any to jokingly voice her concerns. "If we keep moving like this we might not get to the serious stuff before we hit dessert!"

Balan's face seemed torn between a smile and something very different. His scar, too.

"The next course _is_ dessert, isn't it?"

The ambassador nodded with a faux bashfulness. He still held the knife only inches from his cup.

"Didn't you say that you had something important that you wanted to talk to me about?" Anna asked. "Isn't that why you called the meeting in the first place? Wait, it wasn't the bird thing, was it? I'm not really sure how Arendelle can help you get over your fear-"

"No, no," Balan interrupted. His lips had fully swung to an exaggerated frown. "You are correct. I have called this meeting for something very important, indeed. Forgive me - I have a bad habit of delaying official matters as long as I can manage. A Geraldien custom, I suppose."

The ambassador placed his knife back down beside his plate on the table, a deceptively grand gesture that small talk had definitively ceased. The large man's posture was straighter; his look absolutely focused. What was once refined and proper became aggressively more so with the arrival of true business and Anna could feel the intimidating shift in the air between them instantly.

Perhaps she should not have been so insistent upon getting serious after all.

"What... What is the something?"

"I have come to Arendelle in order to discuss the possible invocation of Article IV of the Treaty of the Sixth," Balan declared. His casualness was gone, replaced entirely by an equally suave severity. It was as if he were reading his thoughts out of a textbook. "Geralde suspects it will be in need of some assistance very soon."

Anna's eyebrow instinctively raised. "The Treaty of the Sixth?" she mumbled to herself. She recalled the name from her history lessons and discussions with the ambassador over the course of his recovery.

Among the isolationist Arendelle's few de-facto allies, Balan's homeland ranked higher than most. While the Royal Family had only had limited diplomatic discussion with Geralde for several years, the two nations remained connected by the vague, ancient partnership.

The Treaty of the Sixth's mandates were many and admittedly the princess could not remember them all, however she did know that they had secured a resilient friend for Arendelle over the generations, linking their trade networks in a way perhaps only rivaled by the former agreement with Weselton.

"You look surprised," Balan said disappointedly. "You know of the treaty. I believe we toasted to it, did we not?"

"Yes, yes," Anna coughed out. "I'm aware of the treaty. I mean, we talked about it the other day and I learned about it as a kid and I eat Geraldien chocolates all the time and I even got to visit once or twice as a kid, but..." the princess lost herself for a moment in her tangent. She had to pause to collect herself before continuing. "I have a little trouble remembering the Articles," she admitted, averting her eyes. "You said IV?"

When the young woman looked back up, she could only watch worriedly as Balan's face once again twisted into a strange expression of conflicting emotion that was powerful and unreadable all the same.

"Yes, Article IV," he affirmed, a grimace rising to the surface at last. "The defensive pact against the aggression of our _shared neighbor_."

The ambassador finished his reminder with such distaste that Anna knew exactly who he was speaking of, her historic studies again coming in handy.

"Ceverra," she whispered to a scornful nod from the man.

The princess knew that only the second-closest nation to Arendelle could inspire such animosity from an agent of the first.

Geralde and Ceverra alone occupied an island just a day's sail off of the coast, setting them up as natural rivals along their oft-contested border. Anna's lessons had been riddled with conflict between the two kingdoms. Arendelle technically remained neutral in the affairs, however it was plain to see that its relationship with Ceverra was not nearly as comprehensive as with Geralde considering the former's reputation for deadly - though thankfully increasingly infrequent - attempts at expansion and thus elimination of its counterpart.

"As you know, the Treaty of the Sixth followed our last war with the Ceverrans. With Article IV, our great kingdoms agreed to aid each other militarily if Ceverra were ever to ultimately attack again," Balan explained, speaking proudly almost as if he had been there those decades ago and signed the papers himself. "While that promise has kept them to mere harmless troublemaking for this long, it seems that we can expect such 'peace' no more."

"Geralde has been attacked?" Anna gasped.

"No," Balan shook his head slightly, "not outright, but I fear that real conflict is imminent. Several of our farms on the border have been _mysteriously_ raided. It was unlike anything we have seen from the Cavarrans in years, but it was them," the ambassador looked downwards with a wince. "The fields were razed; homes turned to ashes; survivors nonexistent. It was just like last time. It was them."

The ambassador gazed broodingly at his unfinished food, but when the princess (also deep in shocked thought) did not respond, he transitioned upwards again.

"As I said, I have come to ensure that Arendelle is prepared to uphold its end of the treaty," Balan said in a low voice that might have been humble if he were capable of such a feat. "In the event of an attack, Geralde would be unable to defend itself alone. We would rely on your aid. I wanted to make sure that Queen Elsa would provide it."

Anna could not tear herself away from eye contact with the man.

"I..." the princess stammered. She thought back to her time in front of the vanity mirror, though suddenly her practiced lines seemed woefully inadequate. Surely she could not turn the ambassador away with an excuse - not considering the revealed importance of the meeting and the binding force behind his request. "I'm sure that my sister will follow the treaty," Anna decided quickly, thinking on her feet and hoping that she was correct in her declaration for several reasons. "Of course she will."

"Thank you," Balan nodded. His lips turned up into a finally concrete expression of relief as if the princess had reassured him perfectly. He was back at ease, slowly returning to his full defining confidence. "We can only hope that things do not come to that," he said with dissipating gravity. "Can I assume that you will discuss these matters with the queen herself, then, whenever she is well enough?"

"Yes," Anna agreed, worry ringing in her mind like a constant buzz. "Yes, of course."

Indeed, she _needed_ to talk to Elsa. Even if it were just a possibility and in the defense of a good friend, the implications of Arendelle being dragged to war by a generations-old treaty especially now were anything but positive.

Once again, the princess would be tasked with informing her sister of something that she definitely did not want to.

"Fantastic," the ambassador had almost reached a full smile. "I knew that I could count on you, Princess Anna."

Anna could only nod.

Balan raised his knife and tapped at the chalice at last and - despite that fact that he still had not taken a single additional bite of lamb - the princess did not try to interrupt him.

The two servants rushed in and exchanged old plates for new, presenting the diners with a hefty slice of dark cake each.

As he always did, the ambassador said something complimentary about the dish's decadent composition and surely excellent flavor, but Anna could barely hear him.

She took a distracted bite.

It might have been the worst chocolate that she had ever tasted.


	14. Chapter 14

By the end of dessert, both of the plates in the dining hall were empty for the first time in the meal. Anna had wolfed her share of chocolate cake down in anxious anticipation of the meeting's end; Balan taken his at an only slightly slower pace with a satisfied smile new on the edges of his lips.

"I should go check on Elsa," Anna began to excuse herself immediately after the ambassador had finished his slice. The princess looked at the man for formal permission and he gave it with a nod.

"Of course," Balan rose his chalice for a final swig and gulped the wine down until it was all gone. The cup returned to the table with a metallic thud. "I would join you, but I must go into town before nightfall. I would like to send of my predicament to Geralde. I _am_ nearly two days late already, after all."

"I see," Anna agreed, but she really just wanted to leave. The weight of the meeting had finally settled upon the princess and she was now desperate to see her sister.

Anna felt guilty for making the decision to affirm the treaty's mandates to the ambassador so hastily. She hated making decisions hastily in general ever since the Hans incident. Even though the princess recognized that her action was in truth choice-less - as Arendelle obviously would not go back on its commitment to Geralde - she still had a terrible feeling about the whole business, like she had messed up yet again in some huge way.

Somewhere deep down, Anna knew that she was wrong - that her choice had truly meant very little - but there was something about the situation that unnerved her. The princess's skin tingled and she suspected that the only cure would be discussing it all with Elsa.

"We're off," Balan announced as he wiped his lip with his tongue. He allowed Anna to rise from her seat before standing himself.

The ambassador smiled contentedly as he and Anna strolled to the front of the dining hall. Around them, servants stole out of side doors and went to work returning the room to its normal state immediately, stacking placemats in their arms and pulling the drapes away from the windows.

Orange evening light snapped through the glass and covered the room and all of a sudden the theater of the grand meeting was gone. Even so, Balan did not pass up his last chance to speak with his trademark dramatic flourish.

"Do not forget to tell the queen of our talk," he concealed the order with a brassy tone. "Mention to her that I would greatly enjoy meeting with her, as well, though I will be returning to Geralde as soon as I have recovered for obvious reasons."

"Right," Anna answered distractedly. She was more focused on the fact that they had almost reached the wide front door by then than their conversation. "I wouldn't worry, though. Elsa won't turn her back on an ally," the princess continued. "She's like that."

Balan grunted thoughtfully, reserving his spoken response until the two of them had emerged out into the hallway. Even from just the vague sound, it was clear that he was not yet fully satisfied.

"I know," the ambassador calculated, weighing his options before deciding what to say next. "I only wish to make sure. Please do not think me insulting, but Queen Elsa's backing in particular is vital to the issue. You understand."

Anna nodded, but she was not entirely sure that she did.

"Fantastic," Balan beamed just as broadly as he had when he greeted the princess in the same position hours before. "Goodnight, Princess Anna. I expect that I will see you around the castle sometime in the morning."

"Goodnight," Anna echoed with as much enthusiasm as she could muster at the unpleasant reminder. She had almost forgotten that the ambassador was staying in the castle.

Balan stood still and forced the young woman to make the first move like it were some sort of test. She turned in one direction and murmured, "bye," again before taking off for the infirmary.

Anna thought that she could almost feel the ambassador's eyes on her back as she went, but when she looked back as she ducked into a side hallway he was barely visible - a faraway speck barreling towards the nearest courtyard exit.

The princess shook her head of thoughts of the odd man and proceeded.

* * *

No one could look away from Dee. The guardsmen behind the widow gaped at her harsh voice; Elsa under the sheet watched as attentively as possible through sleepy eyes; Kai at the bedside shivered with a simultaneous dread and interest. Even the ever-curious doctor peered out of his office door in the back of it all, anxiously awaiting whatever was to come next.

Mere mention of information concerning the Dark Mage would have gotten anyone in Arendelle's attention, but Dee's recent history and the sheer severity of her tone certainly did not hurt in building interest.

"Please, go on," Elsa urged in response to the widow's offer. As Isaac had anticipated, the queen was just as eager as anyone else to hear what the other woman had to say.

"Yes, Queen Elsa," Dee looked down for a moment, breaking eye contact with Elsa and staring instead at the blanket below her face that covered her wrapped frame. "I must warn you, however, that my information is nothing good."

"What's wrong?" Elsa rasped, studying the widow's face - for the first time plainly before her, unhidden by the shadows of the dungeon. The queen could suddenly see the tear stains across the woman's cheeks, invisible to anyone who was not truly looking. A worry that she could not explain mounted deep in her stomach.

It was strange. Elsa felt like she should have known what was bothering Dee, but she did not. All she knew was that something was different from how it had been on the night of the festival. The pain on the widow's cheeks was even heavier - more personal, hidden in plain sight by the dried wrinkles - and it pressed her into a noticeably abnormal quietude.

Despite her muted qualities, the widow still looked oddly confident, like she had a specific goal in mind with every action and was determined to achieve each one individually.

Her latest sure movement was to reach into her cloak, a gesture that Martin instantly reacted to with a flinch and panicked cry from her side.

"Hey-"

But the widow merely pulled her small book out of the folds of her cloak. She waved it in the direction of the vigilant guardsman casually as if to prove its meagerness and then held it out in front of her so that the bedridden queen could see its cover.

Martin glared sideways at Isaac, who shrugged helplessly in response.

"_Daniel and the Dark Mage_," Dee presented the storybook. It was a plain affair - the title engraved white upon a stark black binding that secured a handful of pages befitting the legend. "Have you read it?"

Martin snapped back to attention at the widow's words. He gave a quiet but nevertheless uncharacteristic scoff at the sight of the book.

Elsa shot the guardsman a questioning glance before focusing back on Dee, who had not even acknowledged the protest in the slightest. "The castle library doesn't have a copy," the queen said, "but I believe I've seen it mentioned before. It's one of the oldest stories featuring the Dark Mage, is it not?"

"Correct," Dee nodded. "_The _oldest, in fact - the first written account of his existence."

The guardsmen exchanged another look at the widow's final word. They were both familiar with the story (and had indeed seen the Dark Mage in the flesh), but there was still something odd about thinking of the villain as a reality. For so long he had _just _been a story.

"It tells of the Dark Mage's possession of a great knight," Dee explained, speaking to the queen directly. "Daniel, his name is. The mage corrupts Daniel from within - he turns him against his family, his friends... even his own kingdom."

An unspoken understanding passed between the women, but Elsa's realization was interrupted by another outburst from Martin.

"It's not real, though," the guardsman insisted, talking out of turn for what was most likely the second time in his life. His voice had surpassed its usual squeakiness and he looked more nervous than defiant. "It's just some legend."

Elsa glared up at her alleged defender again, her eyes lingering this time to make her point clear. Beside him, she could see the two other men's sympathetic faces, as well.

"I'm sorry, Queen Elsa," Martin's sweating intensified as he shrunk into himself with a brief bow. "I don't like that story," he murmured to no one.

"A few days ago, everyone would have dismissed the Dark Mage himself as 'some legend'," Elsa reminded the rest of the widow's skeptical audience. "However we all saw him right there in front of us. I don't think we're in the position to be discounting anything at the moment," she finished and was once again watching the widow. "You're suggesting that the Dark Mage that we saw was-"

"Merely a host, yes," Dee answered a prompt that was not really there.

"I see."

"And I don't base my information only on 'legends', either," Dee continued stubbornly. "I'm sure that I am correct. I'm not just suggesting that the Dark Mage that attacked Arendelle Castle was a man possessed - I'm saying that I know _exactly_ who that man was."

The observers in the room grew completely still, even Martin now fully silenced by his surprise.

"You... you do?" Elsa asked shakily.

A latent pain reappeared in the widow's eyes and the beginning of tears welled on her lashes. Both Isaac and Elsa - experienced in the widow's fits - expected Dee to start wailing, but she did not. When the tears did break free from her eyes, they were only accompanied by a sorrowful mumbling.

"Oh, Queen Elsa."

Elsa gulped at the address and her throat burned appropriately.

"What is it?" the queen tried to keep her voice level in an attempt to soothe the woman. Not knowing what had upset the widow in the first place made things difficult. "What's wrong?"

Dee took a deep, faltering breath that caught half-way through. When she finally opened her mouth, her voice came muffled through a veil of tears. "I arrived home today to find my son, Ron, missing," she admitted with a slight gasp. "_This_ was on his bed."

The widow cracked open her book carefully and a single loose page dropped from it, sliding into her ready free hand. She placed the paper gingerly on the cover, almost cradling its single ripped edge.

"It's the last page," Dee explained sadly. Tears fell from her cheeks and onto the page below as she read the printed words over for the hundredth time that day. "_The Knight was consumed by the magic which he had been powerless to unleash_," she recited, "_and the Dark Mage, too, was devoured by his own flames_."

With trembling hands, Dee flipped the paper over to reveal a hand-written message on its back.

"_I'm sorry_," the widow read breathlessly. Without looking up, she explained. "It's Ron's handwriting."

The audience waited in stunned silence. All of them suspected what the widow was trying to say, but no one wanted to speak. They all held out hope that they had made some sort of terrible error in perception.

However, Dee quickly made herself clear.

"It was him!" she shrieked suddenly and before Elsa's very eyes the hysteric widow of the dungeon reappeared with her slobbering and her shuddering and her volume. The page rippled and crumpled in her grip. "It was him! Ron was the Dark Mage's host!"

Elsa drew her head back into a wince at the widow's declaration, her eyes widened in shock. She murmured something - an unintelligible mix between an exclamation and some sort of comfort for the woman. It took a few seconds for her to come up with a real, appropriate response.

"You can't know that-"

"It was him, Queen Elsa!" Dee huffed, shaking her head from side to side in a rhythm that was reflected in her voice. " It was him!"

Both Martin and Isaac took a guilty step away from the widow's chair to distance themselves from the ensuing cries. Kai took his handkerchief from a front pocket and offered it to the widow, who blew her nose into it like a trumpet. The physician crept back into his office, suddenly embarrassed to have been eavesdropping.

Everyone in the infirmary gave Dee her moment. They all hoped that the wails would taper off, but quiet never came.

"Dee," Elsa finally stammered above the noise after a full minute, her tone concerned. She suspected that if she did not speak up, the other woman may never stop crying. "Try to calm down. Please."

Dee's sobs quieted slightly on command - at least enough so that conversation could barely be held over them - and she looked at the queen through a waterfall of tears.

"We can't know that your son was possessed by the Dark Mage," Elsa proceeded carefully, unsure of her own thoughts but nevertheless attempting to soothe the widow. "Perhaps he just left to-"

"No," Dee shook her head violently now, sending her ponytailed hair whipping through the air. "The house looked like it had been deserted. No one had been there in days - not since I left. All the food was rotting. The only thing that had even moved was one of William's old cloaks," she paused grimly. "It was gone."

The whole sickroom held its breath.

"I just have a terrible feeling, Queen Elsa," Dee's voice remained shrill and phlegm-filled as she spoke. "I know for sure that it was him. I _know_. It all makes sense. It's not only the legend or the note - that's just the key."

"The key?" Elsa asked shyly, not fully expecting an answer from the other woman's tapering sadness.

Dee blinked away tears and her breathing started to normalize. She gave a hefty sniffle before answering in a less-than-level tone.

"Ron hasn't been himself lately," the widow said, speaking unsteadily on the edge of devastation and trancelike recollection. "He's had a fever for weeks. None of the normal cures have worked at all. He's been angry, too. Very angry - all the time. Ron used to be such a sweet boy..." Dee shivered. "I thought that he was just upset after William's death-"

Elsa was suddenly conscious of her bandages as her muscles underneath pressed against them painfully, tightening of their own accord.

"-but now it all makes sense. It's just like what happened to Daniel when he got possessed - the symptoms are identical," Dee seemed to emerge from her memories and was looking at Elsa in earnest again. "It all makes sense."

The widow wiped her face with Kai's now-damp handkerchief before holding the torn page upright between herself and the bed so that the two hand-written words were displayed plainly to the queen.

"Ron left this for a reason," Dee declared with a reemerging confidence. "It was the Dark Mage who attacked the castle, not him. There must have been some part of him still there after the possession - some part that left _this_ page, that wrote _these_ words."

Elsa was struck by the other woman's belief. All of the evidence was there - the illness, the change in mood, the stolen cloak, the disappearance, the message - but it all seemed so unbelievable. Then again, everything about the Dark Mage had seemed unbelievable before Elsa saw him with her own eyes; felt his flames on her own skin. Still, absent Dee's conviction, the queen probably would not have even been able to consider the scenario.

"Ron wanted me to figure out what happened," Dee continued with absolute certainty. Her hand dropped back into her lap and she tucked the stray paper into her copy of _Daniel and the Dark Mage_ before raising the book itself into the air. "This is the key to _figuring everything out_. I know it is."

Martin, Isaac, and Kai all looked at the queen in the same moment, afraid to speak the question that was painted across all three of their faces.

"You're talking about the similarities between the story and what happened at the festival," Elsa started to answer them knowingly, though she was still looking at the widow. "That's the key, right? Ron's behavior and the attack on the castle are clear links, but if we read into it there could be even more," the queen coughed, her throat weakening again under strain. She finished quickly. "If the two really line up, then we might be able to make other connections."

"Exactly," Dee nodded in satisfaction. Her tears had become dry on her cheeks once more and her tempestuous emotions had swung back to the calm end of the spectrum. "If you want to know more about the Dark Mage, then I think _Daniel and the Dark Mage_ is where you need to look. I haven't read this in many years," the woman waved the book slightly, "but I'm sure there's something in here that can be of use. Where the Dark Mage comes from - what he wants."

Even though she understood the widow's reasoning, Elsa still could not allow herself to be completely convinced.

As if the universe had sensed her doubt, Dee continued.

"Queen Elsa, you told me that we were going to help each other figure out our problems," the woman returned the book to her lap, lowering any distraction from her line of sight to the queen as they locked eyes. Elsa could see the plea in her pupils. "I know this wasn't exactly what you meant, but I think that there's something to this. This is important to me. I have to know what happened to Ron. I _have _to," the widow paused to let it all sink in for a few seconds. "I came because I wanted to share this information with you, but even if you don't believe in what I'm saying... Will you help me? For my sake?"

The three men waited for the queen's response. She felt like she was waiting for it, too.

Elsa remembered her conversation with the widow in the dungeon those nights ago - remembered the undeniable kinship she had felt with the woman who by all means should have been her enemy. She sensed their connection again in their intense eye contact and knew that the two of them understood each other in a way that no one else did - perhaps that no one else _could_.

As she had anticipated, Elsa's answer arrived without her input. "Yes," she croaked. "Of course, I will-"

The queen's voice stopped and devolved into hacking that shook her restricted body, eliciting several groans amidst the coughs and summoning the physician back into the infirmary.

The doctor pushed past the spectators before turning to address them from close to the bedside. "She needs more water," he declared somewhat redundantly.

"Right away," Kai grabbed the empty glass from the nearby table and was off for the kitchen in an instant.

"This is probably too much excitement for someone in her condition," the physician continued once the servant had left. "I understand that these are important matters," he cleared his throat - realizing that he had just let on that he had been listening the whole time - before adding quickly, "but I would suggest that you wait until morning."

"Yes," Dee agreed with a tinge of disappointment. "Yes, that would probably be for the best."

On the bed, Elsa finally was able to stifle her coughs.

"Isaac?" she rasped with great effort.

Isaac looked surprised and then nervous in rapid succession. He looked at his friend for reassurance, but found only a blank stare. The doctor rolled his eyes as the young guardsman took the few steps to approach the bed and arrive at his anticipated judgment.

"Yes?" Isaac asked meekly.

"Take... Mrs. Daleon," Elsa struggled, "to... a guest room... for the night..."

"Yes, Queen Elsa," Isaac accepted the order with a sort of wonder. The fact that the queen trusted _him_ with a task - despite its relative insignificance - was enough to convince him that the risk of bringing Dee to the infirmary had been fully worth it.

The queen _must_ have forgiven him for his incompetency at the festival.

There was the small detail that Isaac did not know where any of the guest rooms _were_, but he would figure that out eventually. In the meantime, he turned and nodded to his charge, who rose from the visitors' chair.

"Thank you, Queen Elsa," Dee said, tucking her book back into her belt underneath her cloak. "I'll see you tomorrow."

Elsa smiled in response. "Tomorrow," the queen confirmed painfully.

It was worth it to see the widow's lips turn up slightly, too, as the young guardsman led her out of the infirmary.

* * *

Anna practically ran into Kai in her rush towards the sickroom, almost knocking the recently-filled cup out of his hands as they simultaneously turned onto the infirmary hallway.

"Sorry! Sorry!"

"Not a problem, Princess Anna," Kai forgave the princess with a faint smile after he had recovered his balance.

Anna glanced down at the nearly-spilled water and instantly realized what it meant. "Elsa's awake again?"

"Yes," Kai bit the side of his cheek nervously for some reason. "Her throat is still in bad shape," he stated simply, leaving whatever else it was that was clearly on his mind unsaid.

At Kai's gesture, the two proceeded towards their shared goal, but Anna noticed that the servant said nothing more. He did not even ask about her meeting with the ambassador. They reached the infirmary door in silence and Kai stepped forward to hold it open.

"Elsa!" Anna cried as she burst through the entrance for the second time that day.

For a split second, the princess could see that all three of the sickroom's occupants - the doctor, Martin, and Elsa herself - were sharing in Kai's quiet contemplation. The tension was gone as soon as she was noticed at the door, but Anna could tell that something had happened in her absence that had sent her company deep into thought.

She was not entirely sure just how eager she was to know what it was.

"Anna," Elsa rasped pitifully. Her eyes were for a moment bright upon the princess before they quickly went to the cup in Kai's hand with thirst. The servant hurried over to the bedside, where the physician still hovered, and tipped the water into the queen's mouth.

"How are you holding up?" Anna asked as she moved to her habitual chair, sharing a short nod with Martin as she passed him.

Elsa gurgled slightly as she finished the water and Kai lifted the cup from her lips.

"Thank you," the queen's voice sounded scratchy, but she could talk with only mild discomfort now. Kai smiled at her and took a few steps back. Elsa's eyes fluttered to focus on Anna again. "I'm fine."

"Again, Queen Elsa, I question your definition of the word 'fine'," the doctor protested. "Your throat will never recover if you keep straining it so much. You're lucky that I saved you from that woman earlier. She didn't seem the sort to give you much rest-"

"Woman?" Anna interrupted, hopelessly confused.

Elsa sighed and her chest burned dully with the movement.

"I understand," she addressed the doctor. "I promise I'll give the talking a break _right_ after I speak with Anna."

The physician, too, sighed. "If you must," he conceded. "I will be in the office."

"Wait, what woman was he talking about?" the princess demanded from the side.

Elsa's head tilted ever so slightly back in her sister's direction. "Mrs. Daleon paid me a visit during your meeting," she divulged. Her voice was weak, but its underlying tone left no question as to what it was that she and the others had been thinking about prior to Anna's arrival.

"What? _Mrs. Daleon_, Mrs. Daleon?"

"The very same."

"I thought that you had Martin take her home."

"He did," Elsa said. "She came back."

"Why?"

The queen hesitated and for a moment her face tightened again as she reflected. "She had information about the Dark Mage," she recalled.

"What? No way."

Elsa would have nodded were it not for the burns.

"What did she say?"

Again, the queen had to make a conscious effort to consolidate her thoughts. In as few words as she could (as a courtesy to the physician and her own mind), Elsa explained her latest encounter with the widow. Anna sat silently as she was told of eerie storybooks and mysterious notes and missing sons.

Much like her sister's initial reaction, the princess found herself doubting at first, but she could see that, despite her conflicted appearance, Elsa had started to believe the tale just as much as Dee. There was no question in her words - she stated every word of the widow's testimony as fact. With the queen's reserved impression, Anna began to see the pieces fall into place herself.

After she had finished with the retelling of Dee's account, Elsa finally left a pause long enough for her sister to speak up.

"Are you sure about this?" Anna took the chance to ask, the last of her uncertainty boiling to the surface timidly. Usually Elsa was the one questioning _her_ schemes. "I mean, reading the book to find out more about the Dark Mage?"

"Yes," Elsa declared, and even with her raspy voice it was plain to see that she was _quite_ sure. "Mrs. Daleon is a friend," she explained. Anna raised her eyebrows imperceptibly, but bit her tongue, remembering what her sister had told her of the widow earlier in the day. To be fair, she had never heard the queen call _anyone_ a friend before. "Even if there's nothing to this - and _I_ think there just might be - it's important to her, so it's important to me."

The last of the princess's skepticism left her when she saw the sureness in Elsa's face.

"I understand," Anna said proudly - a little victory. "I think I do, at least," the sisters smiled at each other.

"We're set to begin reading tomorrow," Elsa continued. "Between that and Kristoff's meeting with the trolls, we should be able to make some headway as to the Dark Mage's intentions," the queen paused. "I had Isaac take Mrs. Daleon to a guest room in the castle for the night. Hopefully she will be able to bear sharing a wing with Ambassador Balan until morning."

Anna erupted into giggles and everyone else in the room - including the doctor listening from the office - could not help but let out a few stifled chuckles themselves. The mood of the infirmary had been lifted - its occupants all reassured by the queen's newfound confidence and light-heartedness, a definite shift from her usual attitude lately.

"Tell me about the meeting," Elsa said once the laughing had begun to die down. "Was it as important as he said it was?"

The question put a true end to Anna's giggling immediately.

"Unfortunately, yes," the princess admitted gravely.

Now it was Elsa's turn to listen to her sister's story. Anna spoke to the spectacle of the feast and the ceremony of Ambassador Balan himself, ever tiptoeing around the actual content of the meeting. Finally, she reached the pre-dessert conversation and tried especially hard to recall what exactly had been said.

"So he just wanted to make sure that we would uphold the Treaty of the Sixth?" Elsa asked once the princess had finished, sounding rather confused again.

"I think so," Anna replied, though she was unsure herself.

"Surely there's something more to it," Elsa was almost talking to herself, a quiet mumble. "But what?"

"I'm sorry that I gave him an answer without asking you, I just assumed-"

"No, no, no," Elsa stopped her sister before she could finish and tried to force an encouraging smile. "You did great, Anna," she said truthfully. "I'm so proud."

The words hit Anna with an impact, freeing her of the worry that had buzzed in her head since the feast. "Thanks," the princess blushed and averted her eyes. It took a few moments for her to recover herself. "So, um, I gave him the right answer, then?"

"Yes," Elsa answered without hesitation. She tended to be quite self-assured when it came to her duties as queen. "Of course, I would rather a peaceful solution, but Arendelle will always follow through with its commitments."

Again, the woman's words were weighty, though this time it was for a very different reason. A heavy silence fell upon the infirmary for a time.

"Queen Elsa?" Kai was the one to interrupt the noiselessness from his position at the bedside.

"Yes?"

"I believe that an ambassador from Ceverra is in Arendelle as we speak," the servant said. "I was unaware with the situation with Geralde, but he has come to the castle and requested your audience every day since the festival."

"I see," the political gears started to turn in Elsa's head.

"I'll meet with him," Anna volunteered, though the reluctance was clear in her voice.

"I wouldn't sentence you to that again," the queen teased. Her eyes moved onto Kai. "Get the message to him that he will have his audience as soon as I am well. Make sure that he knows that we have been informed of Ceverra's _actions_ - maybe that will be enough to keep them from acting too rashly until I can talk to him."

"Yes, Queen Elsa," the servant stood straight up. "I will go to the inn and find him right away."

"Good idea. Thank you," Elsa dismissed Kai. He left the infirmary in his usual dutiful hurry.

A yawn from Anna brought the queen's attention back to her sister.

"Still haven't caught up on your sleep, I see."

"I think _you've_ been getting enough for the both of us."

One laugh was again significantly lighter than the other. Regardless, Anna's was cut short by another involuntary yawn.

"You should get to bed," Elsa warned after a while.

"I'm enjoying our time together," Anna pouted in an only half-joking manner.

"The doctor said I should be resting my voice anyway," the queen contended. Admittedly, she was already tired, too, considering all of the excitement and her interrupted nap. "We'll both get some rest. I promise I'll wake up in the morning and we'll spend plenty of time together, alright?"

"But-"

Elsa did not even have to say anything to stop her sister - her look said it all.

"Fine," the princess surrendered. "I don't want to, though."

"I know."

Anna dropped her shoulders melodramatically as she left the visitor's chair, eliciting a faint snicker from the queen.

"Goodnight, Anna," Elsa offered.

"Goodnight," the younger sister echoed, but she was looking directly at Martin as she spoke. The guardsman returned the sentiment with a smirk and a quick nod. "Oh, you too, Elsa," Anna added wryly before stealing one last look at the bedridden queen from the door.

Satisfied with the broad smile she got in return, Anna took her leave.

* * *

The door to the post office swung open with a lonely ding as Balan emerged from the tiny shop and into the night. Darkness had fully descended upon Arendelle while he had ensured his Geralde-bound letter's imminent delivery, filling the streets with a black fog that reflected its mood much better than the bright sun had previously.

Recognizing - and indeed fairly intimidated by - the ambassador's prestige and scarred face, the postmaster had lent his late-night customer a lantern for the journey back to the castle after business had been completed. Balan gripped it close as he went on his way, as if there was a chance of he himself getting lost in the blackness without the gas-lit flame's confirmation.

Considering how near he held the lantern, the man ran the definite risk of running into something if it were to suddenly appear before him in the void, but he paid no mind to such worries. He heard not a sound other than his own shuffling footsteps and assumed that the town was just as empty as it had been when he had arrived to the post office - just as empty as it had been all day.

It was not until Balan had turned a few corners towards the castle that his understanding of his unlit surroundings were challenged.

"Hello, Ambassador Balan," a snarl to his left pierced the night with enough force to make the ambassador jump. He did not jump often.

"Who's there?" Balan called out with an embarrassed anger, finally swinging the lantern outwards in the direction of the noise. Its light left him behind and illuminated an alley between two shops.

Leaning against one of the buildings, a wiry man held up an arm in response to the spotlight. His skin was pale and his uniform - and it _was_ a uniform - a deep, contrasting red. Balan wondered how he had not seen his stalker before even with the oppressive darkness.

"You were supposed to say hello back," the man sneered.

Balan watched the enigma critically. He did not look to be one of the townspeople - no, he wore the dress of a fellow diplomat. His posture looked distinctly familiar - his arched back elicited an odd sense of nostalgia - but the ambassador could not place him. Balan's strength was in observation, not memory. The ambassador drew his lantern back into himself, hoping that his counterpart would lower his hand from his face and more clearly reveal his identity.

"You don't remember me," came a flat realization, but, as soon as the man had lowered his arm away from the reduced brightness, recognition swept over Balan.

"Vasili," Balan spat the name. His continuing proper tone did little to disguise his distaste for the Ceverran ambassador - even less than usual considering the other man's political deftness. "You must excuse me. It's a bit dark."

Vasili laughed. His chuckle was calculatedly perfect, just like Balan's would have been if he were to have joined him.

"So it is," the skinny ambassador agreed.

It was a wonder that Balan remembered the other man at all. On account of their nations' shared animosity, the ambassadors of Geralde and Ceverra had not met in nearly a decade. The former had reached out to its neighbor a few times over the years for summit, but every request had been ignored.

The two representatives had only seen each other in passing since the suspension of relations; grudgingly shaking hands at a foreign wedding here, reluctantly sitting across from each other at a grand feast there. Even though they were virtual strangers (mere acquaintances before the overt estrangement), the men were far from friendly.

"What are you doing here?" Balan asked. He now balanced the lantern's light between them, revealing them both in the beams. His eyes now began to acclimate to the darkness out of necessity and he could see that the streets were just as deserted as he had assumed excepting his fellow ambassador. "Decided to desert? I suppose that indeed even the damp alleys of Arendelle are better than anything you would find in Ceverra."

Vasili again chuckled faultlessly at the jab. "Not quite," his speech silenced his own laughs with a tone of raw authority. "I'm actually here on business."

"I would hate to imagine what sort of business they have you doing over there," Balan gestured to the small space behind the other man, cracking a smile.

This time, Vasili did not find the comment very funny. The sound of his annoyed grunt reminded Balan that the Ceverran ambassador had always had quite the temper back when they still met on occasion.

"I was originally in Arendelle to attend the Royal Festival, but I now find myself with a new mission," Vasili breathed out his frustration.

"What is it?"

The smaller ambassador shook his head and ignored the question.

"I am only _over here_ because I knew it would be difficult to catch you off guard," Vasili continued nonchalantly.

"You were _waiting _for me?" Balan had to consciously restrain himself from letting on his worry. This was a negotiation, he realized.

"I suppose I was," Vasili teased, the beginnings of a diplomatic grin returning to his lips. "We must talk. Shall I accompany you to the inn?"

"I'm staying at the castle," Balan proudly announced to the other ambassador's full smile.

"I see," Vasili's words slithered through his exposed teeth. "Then it is worse than I thought," he finally pushed himself off of the wall and walked over to the fatter man's side. "It matters not. Carry on."

"Explain yourself," Balan demanded as he started walking. The left side of his body, nearest his unexpected companion, tensed uncontrollably. His voice had been trained not to falter, but his muscles were not so malleable. "What do you want?"

"I _want_ to discuss this little gambit of yours," Vasili stared sideways at the other ambassador, almost skipping alongside the man in his perpetually awful posture.

"I don't know what you are talking about," Balan filtered his tone of emotion. "Care to be a bit more specific?"

"You've been terribly obvious, Ambassador Balan," Vasili continued. "I wouldn't be surprised if Queen Elsa is onto you already. You _are _Geraldien's finest, so your appearance at such a trivial event as the festival was already suspicious, but that _little _gift you had for the royal family? Those heroics of yours - unsuccessful as they were - during the party?"

Balan did not have to look to know that the other man's eyes were focused on his scar.

"You didn't come to Arendelle for the Royal Festival," Vasili concluded after a short pause. "You had something else in mind. From the beginning, you were trying to curry up favor with the queen because you wanted to ask her for something."

Balan's pace had slowed with the coarse man's deductions, but he retained his composure otherwise and even managed a smirk. "You're quite the sleuth," he complemented flatly. "However, I'm afraid that my intentions are no secret. I believe that merely asking me would have sufficed," Balan regained his full speed and it was matched by the other ambassador at once. "I primarily came to Arendelle to confirm the Treaty of the Sixth's mandates with the queen. I don't know what you Ceverrans were expecting with that attack of yours, but Geralde will not stand idly by as you-"

"Indeed," Vasili acknowledged the truth with a knowing smile, unfazed by the accusation, "what _were _we expecting?"

Balan's brow furrowed for an imperceptible moment before he got it back under control. He was not used to being interrupted.

"_Everyone_ knows about the Treaty of the Sixth," Vasili continued. "You can rest assured that we have accounted for the treaty in Ceverra, and it's doubtless that Queen Elsa is quite aware of it as well. Which would beg the question of why you even thought a personal visit to Arendelle was necessary in the first place, especially with the threat of war on the border."

The other ambassador forced back a gulp. By then, the guardsmen posted at the castle bridge were barely visible at the end of the street, their lanterns tiny beacons of light in the distance. He moved towards them as fast as he could, but it still seemed too slow.

"The Treaty of the Sixth's articles have been upheld for years," Vasili stuck to Balan's side as if he were bound by a leash. "Why would anything change now?"

"I-"

"Or perhaps that wasn't your worry," Vasili stopped the flustered man again.

Suddenly, the Ceverran ambassador grasped Balan's arm with bony fingers, somehow pulling his formidable form to a full halt a ways away from the bridge. Finally, the large man turned to face his counterpart.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Balan spat.

"Maybe," Vasili shrugged almost playfully. "All I know is that you've been in Arendelle for four days and you still aren't satisfied with whatever 'confirmation' you've gotten on the treaty. That suggests to me that you have further aspirations."

"_Further aspirations_?"

"You want something other than just the articles," Vasili clarified. He watched his opponent's eyes, seeking a break in their depths. "And I think I know what that something is."

Balan tried to keep his composure. He recognized the skinny man's searching look.

"We both know that Geralde barely stands a chance against the Ceverran army even_ with_ the help of Arendelle's pitiful forces," Vasili pressed. "You're desperate for something to tip the scales in your favor beyond the treaty, and you've found it in quite the convenient place, haven't you? I suspect that you want-"

"You're _wrong_," Balan insisted fiercely and the other ambassador got his break. The large man's face flared with anger - an accidental indication that Vasili would have been quite _right_.

Balan would have liked to say that the significantly smaller man did not scare him. His thin, curved spine should have been unintimidating to the ambassador, but for some reason he felt distinctly unnerved. The brutal essence of Geralde's neighbors lay bare across Vasili's face. By the lantern's light, he could see the Ceverran spirit in the man's crude eyes.

The shimmering orbs looked hungry, and the worst part was that Balan could not place what exactly it was that they were hungry _for_.

The skinny man grinned in triumph. "I'm unconvinced," he taunted.

"I think that's enough," the larger ambassador said in a voice that was a murmur by his standards.

Balan easily pulled free of Vasili's weak grasp and started slowly for the castle once more. He took the lantern with him, pulling the light away from the other ambassador.

"Give up now, Ambassador Balan," Vasili warned through the blackness.

He paused for a moment as if he were waiting for a response before calling again.

"You asked what my new mission was," the small man offered his counterpart's shrinking back. "Would you really like to know?"

Balan reluctantly stopped, refusing to turn but making his answer clear.

"It's to put an end to your little scheme," Vasili declared loudly. "I had hoped that we could resolve this like gentlemen-"

The Geraldien ambassador started walking again and he was quickly at the castle bridge, nodding to the familiar guards as he passed.

Back on the street, Vasili was left talking to himself, his voice dropped to a whisper.

"-but perhaps alternative action is necessary after all."

* * *

Anna's eyes were drooping with the desire of sleep by the time that she reached her bedroom. Even though she had slept late that morning, the princess was still irresistibly tired - a function of the stress of the meeting and her previous sleep deprivation.

She wasted no time finally pulling off her fine dress and slipping into pajamas. Her body almost felt numb as she started shuffling over to her bed, ready to fall into the pillows and blankets and warmth and-

Anna's foot collided with something hard on the ground.

"Ouch!" the princess shouted, tripping forward and meeting the pillows and blankets and warmth sooner than expected. On account of her throbbing toe, they were not as accommodating as she had hoped.

Anna groaned and pulled her foot close to cradle it, simultaneously cursing and laughing at her clumsiness as she did.

Finally, once the discomfort had dulled, the princess groaned and rose from the bed, awakened by the pain and the sensation of her short fall itself.

She instantly saw what had tripped her. It was the copy of _Sea of Love_ that she had taken from the library. Anna vague remembered having knocked it off of the bed when she had woken up that morning. The princess had almost forgotten about it in the events of the day - forgotten of her desire to reread the book and hopefully discover why she had caught Elsa reading such fluff.

"Won't be sleeping for a while now anyway," she mumbled to herself as she returned to the bed with the novel in hand.

The princess sat atop the mountain of fabric and opened the book in her lap, deciding to read until she eventually felt like falling asleep again.

Anna breezed through the first few chapters before so much as yawning.

_Sea of Love_ was exactly how she had remembered. She had read it several times over the years, considering it since her young teens as a paragon of fiction. In fact, it was her favorite book - exactly the kind of idealized, love-at-first-sight romance that she had always enjoyed and even wished for until recently.

However, as the princess skimmed the passages - a few of which she knew by heart - she still could not even begin to imagine what had possessed Elsa to read them. It was strange to even think of her sister seeking out such a novel.

Nevertheless, there was hard evidence of the queen's readership throughout. Anna saw that certain words that had been circled in pencil - things like 'love', 'adoration', 'affection' - and could even read a few annotations written in Elsa's unreadable shorthand.

As the story progressed, the pages held more and more intricate scribbles and memos. Words were connected by tenuous, oft-erased lines to unclear notes; ideas jotted in the margins illegibly. Occasionally, the princess would reach a leaf with more lead than ink - long paragraphs of what she assumed to be analysis trailing parallel to the printed text.

To Anna the markings began to look almost like an unsolved jigsaw puzzle - apparently one that her sister had been very keen on trying to solve.

"_Sea of Love _isn't that complicated," the princess whispered her concerned thoughts aloud. "What were you looking for, Elsa?"

* * *

**A/N: Oof that's a pretty long chapter. I've been trying to keep them shorter, but this one just had so much and I wanted to keep all of it together so here we are with a bit of a long gap between updates again. Sorry about that!**

**Anyways, hope you all are doing well and enjoying the story so far! Remember I love to hear from you so be sure to drop a review/PM if you get a chance!**

**Thanks so much for reading as always!**


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